Email security is a complex problem that can only realistically be addressed with a specialist product. If the stability of the company's email flow rests in your hands, move on from spam, look at the bigger issues and save your bacon. . . .. In the last few years spam has grown exponentially. Despite changes in the law and the introduction of new regulations, junk email continues to flood in, overloading corporate networks and generally placing a strain on the business operation, not to mention the loss in productivity. Spam is now the number one issue for the majority of IT managers, but by focusing solely on this issue are they in danger of missing the wider issues of email security? Many companies have taken a short-term view of the email security problem, tackling only the most obvious problems of viruses, trojans and spam and implementing piecemeal solutions to combat them. What they fail to consider is the growing threat from other sources such as malformed messages and denial of service attacks. Most email client software has been sufficiently enhanced over the years to accept and "correct" corrupt or badly formatted headers. The majority of the time this is a helpful operation as it ensures speedy email delivery. However, not all anti-virus scanners "see" malformed messages and therefore do not check or scan them. This makes it possible to purposefully construct a malformed message that actually contains malware and deliver it, undetected, right into the heart of the corporate office. In addition, some malformed messages can force the CPU to run at a hundred percent, thus causing the machine to crash. Email servers process messages with the same amount of fortitude as a dog with a bone, once it's got hold of it, it doesn't let go. A maliciously malformed message may result in a denial of service (DoS) attack, with the affected server unable to move on until it finishes processing, which could be hours. DoS attacks can take many forms, Dictionary Harvest Attacks (DHA) for instance are used as a means tocheck for legitimate email address. Thousands of messages are sent to a corporate email server each one with a slightly different spelling to a name, unprotected email servers bounce back unknown recipients, allowing the spammer to collate a database of valid email addresses. The link for this article located at net-security.org is no longer available. . Phishing attempts have surged, overwhelming business systems. Enhance cybersecurity measures beyond mere spam filtering to tackle critical risks.. Email Threats, Corporate Email Solutions, IT Security Risks, Anti-Malware Strategies. . Anthony Pell
You think you've got spam problems with a hundred or so spam messages a day? Try being an ISP or a business where on a good day you don't get more than a one hundred thousand spam mails a day. . .. You think you've got spam problems with a hundred or so spam messages a day? Try being an ISP or a business where on a good day you don't get more than a one hundred thousand spam mails a day . You can't believe it's that much. Think again. How bad is it? Ferris Research, a San Francisco- and London-based email and groupware analysis firm, says that 30% of inbound email is spam at ISPs, while at companies, spam accounts for 15% to 20% of inbound email. "In 2002," Ferris says, "the total cost of spam to corporate organizations in the United States was $8.9 billion." Since that Ferris study, things have only gotten worse. According to ISP and business mail administrators I've spoken with, ISP inbound mail is now up to 50% junk mail, while corporations e-mail servers are up to a rather horrifying 30%. In addition, it's only going to get worse, the Coalition against Unsolicited Bulk Email, Australia, estimates that spam's volume is doubling every 4.5 months. The link for this article located at LinuxPlanet is no longer available. . You think you've got spam problems with a hundred or so spam messages a day? Try being an ISP or a b. think, you've, problems, hundred, messages, being. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
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