September 19, 2012
Why Spam Firewall ?
Spam has rapidly turned from a mere nuisance into a major security threat and financial drain for organizations worldwide. While at first spam was relatively easy to block through the use of blacklists or basic content filtering techniques, spamming methods have advanced to the point that these technologies are no longer sufficient or cost-effective. The financial costs associated with spam are large and growing. First, there is the loss of employee productivity due to time spent managing their inboxes and junk email folders, requiring employees to delete spam and block senders. But perhaps even more costly for businesses is the large volume of spam that enters company networks, which can choke mail servers and occupy expensive space in email quarantines and storage archives. This inundation of spam results in reduced bandwidth, slower email delivery, and higher storage costs. To make matters worse, spam is often a mechanism used to carry viruses, malware, and numerous other security threats which can compromise sensitive information, damage a network, and cause significant cost in terms of network downtimes and repairs to infected systems. Finally, there is the challenge of successfully blocking spam while at the same time avoiding the accidental deletion of valuable business email. Therefore, Cheap and Free-of-Cost Anti-Spam Services are becoming expensive for the organizations. Clearly with such an influx of unwanted, dangerous junk mail, it is necessary for organizations to broaden their efforts at combating spam by applying a new generation of anti-spam solutions that leverage multiple layers of protection, including maintenance services.
Barracuda Spam Firewall
1. No software to install
2. No hardware to maintain
3. No modifications to your existing email system
4. Affordable
Spam never sleeps! Fighting an ever-changing attack of unwanted message and email virus threats is costly and takes continued IT time. Unlike spam filtering software and appliances that operate inside your network, Barracuda Spam Filtering is a preemptive approach to stopping spam. Spam filters reside between the Internet and your network to stop spam and viruses before they reach your network, consume your bandwidth or monopolize your IT staff.
Technology includes:
Blacklisting to maintain up-to-date lists of large known spammers, compiled from anti-spam databases and groups. This is a living list that grows daily and is automatically updated automatically for each customer. Keyword scanning methods include scoring systems for emails based on multiple criteria. If the email score exceeds defined thresholds, it is flagged as spam. We constantly monitor and update our keyword' master library so you don't have to. Checksum technology tracks the number of times a particular message has appeared. If the message frequency exceeds threshold, it is blocked as spam. Message authenticity check uses multiple algorithms to verify authenticity of a message. Some are simple checks such as "from address," and others are more complex, relating to SMTP protocol. Blacklists / Whitelists include Domains, IP's, and email addresses that the customer wants Blacklisted (blocked) or Whitelisted (allowed through). Lists are maintained per user and per domain. Rate controls are used to stop denial of service attacks as well as other service attacks.
Anti-virus technology includes:
Anti-virus protection is a built-in feature of Barracuda Spam Filtering. Updates are posted hourly to ensure the latest virus definitions are in place. File type attachment blocking stops known malicious file types, such as VB script, from entering your network through emails. Attachments are also scanned using the built-in anti-virus protection.