Enterprise gateway defense against spam

Spam is a serious email problem that is only getting worse. Leading industry analysts collectively agree that Spam proliferation is still on the increase. Spam currently accounts for approximately 80% of corporate email (this number varies regionally) but is predicted to account for 90% of email by 2008.

Marshal’s own research into spam has indicated that spam costs US 4c per message on average. On its own, that doesn’t sound like a lot but the spam issue is one of overwhelming numbers. One particular Marshal customer has reported that MailMarshal is capturing more than 97% of spam; accounting for over 200,000 messages a day. That’s a saving of US$8,000 per day in bandwidth and time.

Enterprise gateway anti-spam capabilities

The key to success of the MailMarshal solution is in identifying spam at the gateway, before it enters the organization. MailMarshal users a multi-tiered approach to anti-spam; employing an array of different methods to identify spam and minimize false positives.

These methods include:

• SpamCensor – a heuristic anti-spam engine that is trained to identify spam based on more than 4,000 characteristic indicators. SpamCensor is regularly updated to maximize efficiency and accuracy.
• URLCensor – identifying messages with suspicious URL’s that link to likely spam sources RBL databases – MailMarshal references real-time blacklists of known spam sources and assess messages that have passed through known spam gateways
• Whitelisting and blacklisting (gateway and user definable) – identifying individual email addresses or domains that are either known spammers or authorized safe email senders
• Challenge Response - allows you to automatically gather outbound email addresses and challenge any unapproved inbound email addresses
• Dynamic updates to SpamCensor and URL censor – Marshal is constantly evolving its anti-spam technology and regularly updates MailMarshal with the latest tools developed by Marshal’s security experts
• SQM (Spam Quarantine Management) – MailMarshal empowers end users to manage their spam via an individualized Internet portal. End users can review spam that has been blocked for them, release messages that the desire, add safe senders and blacklists and delegate spam management to other users
• Image Analysis using third-party tools

Will legislation solve the spam problem?

In what was the first international forum dedicated solely to addressing spam issues, agencies from 27 countries convened in October 2004 their aim was to improve cross-border collaboration in the fight against spam. Topics included law enforcement strategies, sharing of information and the reduction of cross-border barriers in battling spam.

European and Asian countries attending another conference in February 2005 pledged to work together and to promote international efforts to battle Spam. A key attendee at this conference was China, which is estimated to be the source of more than 68 percent of spam globally.

Within the European Union itself, 13 member states have agreed to work together in tackling the spam originating from within the selected countries. Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom have signed a similar agreement.

In Germany a cross-section of trade organizations have formed an alliance in the battle against spam in that country.

One key intention of this flurry of activity is to use legislation to hit back at spammers. Several countries have introduced laws and regulations designed to give law enforcement a means of penalizing serious abusers. For example, the United States has the CAN-SPAM act, the European Union has the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive and Germany has the Tele-services Act.

But international cooperation and legislation does little to combat spam. Officials have brought several high profile cases against spammers, with some successful prosecutions. However, it seems to be having little impact. Despite their best efforts there has been a significant six-month increase in spam coming from Europe in particular France, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom. In fact, Europe has become a greater source of spam than the United States. Worldwide spam trends still rise, with a 94-percent increase in February 2005, compared to the same month in 2004.

Spam has also gone beyond being a major source of irritation in your inbox. Increasingly, spam is of an illegal and often criminal nature. Offenders now deploy viruses and hacking methods to gain control of zombie servers and assist in spam delivery. Phish-type spam lures unwitting victims into divulging personal information so the attacker can steal their cash and identity.