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TUMBLEWEED EMAIL FIREWALL 6.1 DELIVERS BEST IN CLASS ANTI-SPAM DEFENSES WITH INTENT-BASED FILTERING (IBF)

New Layer of Proactive 'Artificial Intelligence' Delivers 98% Capture Rate and Low False Positives.

Redwood City, CA — December 15, 2004 — Tumbleweed® Communications Corp. (NASDAQ: TMWD), a leading provider of e-mail and file transfer security solutions, today announced the release of Tumbleweed Email Firewall 6.1, the latest version of Tumbleweed’s award-winning email security solution. Significant additions to Tumbleweed Email Firewall 6.1 include the integration of Intent-Based Filtering (IBF) artificial intelligence into the Tumbleweed Spam Analysis Engine, as well as enhancements to system management, the policy engine and security.

Tumbleweed Email Firewall 6.1 now combines both proactive and reactive approaches to fighting spam, delivering 98% capture rates with extremely low false positives. On the proactive side, Tumbleweed’s Intent-Based Filtering employs artificial intelligence to recognize spam messages as a human reader would, and quickly eliminate them from the email stream. On the reactive side, Tumbleweed’s global Message Protection Lab publishes heuristic updates to the Spam Analysis Engine every hour for customers who have subscribed to the Tumbleweed Dynamic Anti-spam Service (DAS). These updates help block spam that may be leveraging the latest content-based techniques to evade spam filters. In addition, expanded character set support in this release allows DAS updates to more effectively block foreign-language spam while maintaining a low false positive rate. And enhanced enterprise directory integration provides support for recipient verification to block junk email that may contain spam, viruses, or be a part of a larger Directory Harvest Attack (DHA).

"IBF technology is one of the most compelling features in Tumbleweed’s email security solution," said Joe Fisher, VP of Product Marketing for Tumbleweed. "Unlike Bayesian approaches, which can work well at the individual desktop level, IBF doesn't require training or feedback and can categorize messages based on context and intent which scales well for an entire organization. The inclusion of IBF in Tumbleweed Email Firewall 6.1 significantly enriches our best-in-class solution."

Tumbleweed Email Firewall 6.1 customers can also enjoy additional cluster configuration options that reduce the cost of operating and scaling the solution. Any of an enterprise’s existing Email Firewall servers can now be assigned as the centralized management console to control the entire cluster, even when multiple systems are deployed. For those customers using the Email Firewall to comply with outbound messaging policies, the 6.1 release also provides more flexible deployment options for the add-on Secure Messenger encryption component. The Email Firewall 6.1 Spam Analysis Engine update, including the IBF technology, will be available to existing Dynamic Anti-spam Service subscription customers without charge, and will require no configuration changes.

About Tumbleweed's Email Firewall
Tumbleweed Email Firewall has been recognized as having the best email security product functionality by META Group, and was rated the #1 enterprise software solution for fighting spam, according to Network World (http://www.nwfusion.com/reviews/2003/0915spam.html). Tumbleweed Email Firewall protects, filters and secures email traffic at the Internet gateway with an integrated set of anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-hacker, content filtering, email relay and encrypted messaging capabilities -- minimizing email communications risks and reducing email management costs. Tumbleweed Email Firewall is used by more than 400 of the world's largest, most demanding messaging infrastructures, and is available in both appliance and software editions.

About Tumbleweed's Dynamic Anti-Spam Service
The Tumbleweed Dynamic Anti-Spam Service (DAS) is rated as a top anti-spam service for large enterprises by Network World magazine, and the product is currently used to block over 32 million spam messages per day on behalf of our customers. DAS is an Internet-based subscription service that updates Tumbleweed's Email Firewall and MailGate 2.2 Appliance with new defenses as they are published, similar to the way anti-virus engines work. Tumbleweed's Message Protection Lab develops and publishes the heuristic updates: the Lab is staffed by experts who continually analyze spam to identify new spammer trends and tactics, and create and publish new heuristics to stop them. The Lab analyzes both spam and legitimate email gathered internationally and provided by enterprise customers, to ensure that the Dynamic Anti-Spam Service minimizes false positives in a business environment.

About Tumbleweed Communications Corp.
A leading e-mail security, file transfer security and Identity Validation company with more than 10 years in the business, Tumbleweed provides comprehensive solutions for managing mission critical data communication channels. From our e-mail security suite, point solutions for Spam, inbound and outbound filtering, to secure file transfer and certificate authentication, Tumbleweed has a variety of solutions currently used by enterprises and governments to help mitigate risk and increase network bandwidth. Tumbleweed customers include ABN Amro, Bank of America Securities, Catholic Healthcare West, JP Morgan Chase & Co., The Regence Group (Blue Cross/Blue Shield), St. Luke's Episcopal Healthcare System, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the US Navy and Marine Corps. Tumbleweed was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For additional information about Tumbleweed go to www.tumbleweed.com or call 650-216-2000.

SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT
Tumbleweed cautions that forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on plans and expectations as of the date of the press release, and that a number of factors could cause the actual results to differ materially from the guidance given at this time. These factors are described in the Safe Harbor statement below.

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, particularly with respect to the performance and characteristics of Tumbleweed’s solutions. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “potential,” “continue,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates,” and similar expressions. For further cautions about the risks of investing in Tumbleweed, we refer you to the documents Tumbleweed files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly Tumbleweed’s Form 10-K filed March 15, 2004, Form 10-Q filed May 10, 2004, Form 10-Q filed August 12, 2004, and Form 10-Q filed November 9, 2004.

Tumbleweed assumes no obligation to update information contained in this press release, which represents the Company’s expectations only as of the date of this release and should not be viewed as a statement about the Company’s expectations after such date. Although this release may remain available on the Company’s website or elsewhere, its continued availability does not indicate that the Company is reaffirming or confirming any of the information contained herein.

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