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Email is now a vital part of conducting business.It has automated information exchange with customers
and business partners. Using email as tool for communication has also exposed businesses to very real risks.
Unsolicited or junk email known as Spam, Virus threats, and non work related emails that enter corporate network and
mail servers severely impact the way electronic business communications is conducted. It results in
loss productivity, network congestions that may impact business critical applications.
Businesses are now looking for rules, regulations and new technology to fight back the
increased spam activity. They want to secure their corporate network and are pro actively taking
action to address the risks associated with email.
This paper explains the problems associated with spam and details solutions available in solving
this issue. It also provides a detailed explanation of ITA Secure Messaging's technology
and how we solve the problem of spam.
Spam - the unwanted visitor
Anyone with an e-mail account can tell you that spam is an annoying problem that needs to be addressed and solved.
For many who rely on e-mail for fast and easy communication, spam can take anywhere from 50 to 90 percent of
their Inbox content each day. Companies that want you to "get rich quick", "lose 30 lbs in 4 weeks", or get the
"best mortgage rates" constantly send unsolicited message in hopes that someone will buy their product.
It appears that the more attention spam gets the more of it ends up in your Inbox everyday. Business Week
has reported in May 2003 that spam mail accounts for half of the e-mail traffic on the internet. USA Today has
reported that more then 2 trillion pieces of junk e-mail are expected to flood the internet this year.
How does it affect your company?
A survey published by Gartner found that employees spent almost one hour per day managing e-mail.
Besides reducing employee productivity, spam places unnecessary demands on the corporate Internet bandwidth
and email servers. It also exposes businesses to lawsuits. The National Research Council has reported that businesses
spent $12.3 billion in 2001 cleaning up spam, which includes the cost of buying additional hardware
and software to handle spam.
Employees waste precious time by deleting junk email messages everyday. Employees tend to become less
responsive when they have to sort though constant spam messages in their Inbox. This may lower their
responsiveness to legitimate e-mails from customers or management that requires urgent action.
In addition to wasting employees' time, spam also drains corporate computer resources.
Companies are often forced to add bandwidth and storage space in order to handle the onslaught of additional
incoming e-mail.
Business liability is created by employees receiving obscene - offensive material and some containing
outright fraud. Viruses and spy software known as Trojans are also sent
through spam that could create loss of valuable corporate data.
What is available to control spam?
Spam is sent by spammers because there is money to be made from it. It is cheap to send and it is easy
for spammers to hide their tracks once they send it to protect themselves from any repercussions.
The two fronts where the spam war is being fought are laws and technology. Laws are being created to punish spammers.
However, spammers can easily bypass any law if they operate out of the country or move their operations to
places where the laws are not enforceable. Technology exists to control spam but no one has come up with a
solution that is perfect. Just as there is money being spent on research and development for anti-spam
technology, spammers are also constantly creating their own methods of bypassing these barriers. Like the
virus prevention solutions, spam technology is also reactive rather then proactive in addressing spam.
New anti-spam solutions are developed to retaliate against the creative techniques utilized by spammers.
Type of solutions available
There is no one solution or technique that can prevent all incoming spam. Below is a list of some techniques.
Bayesian filtering
Computes the probability of spam for every message based on past experience.
- Pros: Affective and a more sophisticated way of determining spam then other options.
- Cons: Requires learning. This filter must watch enough messages both spam and good before
it can be affective. In ITA Secure Messaging this filter is automatically turned on once the number of messages
reaches 5000.
Content filtering
Works by looking at the content of the e-mail and checking for trigger words often found in spam messages.
- Pros: Affective and a more sophisticated way of determining spam then other options.
- Cons: Can treat good emails as spam, also known as ham, and requires active management and monitoring.
IP filtering through RBL lists
Works by looking up the e-mail source IP address against databases containing lists of known
spammer's IP addresses that are constantly updated.
- Pros: Easy to implement and less costly solution then content filtering technology.
Little or no maintenance required on your part.
- Cons: This method is only as good as the databases that it uses for lookups.
Challenge response systems
This is achieved by having the recipient's email system generate a verification email asking the sender to confirm
their identity. When the sender replies his/her e-mail address is added in the white list.
- Pros: No loss of good e-mails.
- Cons: Awkward to implement in a business environment as it requires the sender of the email to
respond back with an answer before letting the email through. If the sender does not respond back it
is treated as a suspicious email.
White and Black lists
Allows the email user to specify who should be allowed to send an email to the recipient and who should be blocked.
- Pros: Easy to implement and very effective.
- Cons: Need to know the senders or content in advance in order to receive e-mails correctly.
Domain validation
Verifies that the domain name specified in the return address has a valid MX record in the DNS.
- Pros: Very effective.
- Cons: Most spammers fake their domain name and therefore, hardly any emails fall into this category.
Which spam technology is best for you
Differentiating spam from normal e-mails is a complicated task. It is made difficult by spammers using
tricks and techniques to disguise spam as normal e-mails. Biggest concern any business have in controlling
spam is that in trying to weed out spam, the spam technology may kill good e-mails critical to the business.
The best spam technology is one that absolutely minimizes false-positives. If false positives do occur,
the system should allow for quick and timely restoration of the user's quarantined e-mails.
It should use multiple filtering methods as outlined previously for blocking spam rather then relying on
just one.
Technology that is flexible in adapting to evolving spamming techniques helps to
make anti-spam technology more affective and minimizes false positives.
Providing an easy way to identify and restore good e-mails from within discarded spam should be
taken into strong consideration in deciding which solution to use for your company.
The solution that reduces spam while allowing legitimate e-mails to get through is the best solution.
Technology that is easy to manage should be given strong consideration. Off course, cost should also
be an important factor in the final decision.
Smart filtering
Identifying spam from ham is a constant battle between spammers and anti-spam software.
The type of techniques used by spammers is "state-of-the-art". Too bad these people use such talent
to annoy others. Hence, it is very important for spam filtering software to stay one step ahead of
all such techniques. Not only should the anti-spam software untangle the tricks but it should also penalize
an email for using such measures.
ITA Secure Messaging's solution
ITA Secure Messaging Corporate Edition offers a complete server based spam control and management solution.
It works as a firewall that blocks unwanted e-mail before they reach a corporate mail server.
ITA Secure Messaging can integrate with many SMTP mail servers such as Sendmail, Microsoft Exchange,
Lotus Domino, GroupWise, or any other SMTP mail server by acting as a gateway between
your network and corporate mail server. It provides enhanced support for Microsoft Exchange by
integrating with Active Directory. ITA Secure Messaging uses multiple filtering methods in
identifying and discarding spam e-mails. It allows total control over management and customization of spam
rules. Its extensive reporting and email monitoring capabilities provide a proactive approach for tackling any
email attacks and other attempts to misuse your system by malicious users.
Conclusion
Spam is a significant issue for many corporations. All projections point toward the spam problem getting worse in the
coming years. This white paper outlined the issues associated with spam, how
spammers use sophisticated techniques to send out junk e-mails, what techniques are available for eradicating
this problem, and how to choose the best solution for your business environment.
ITA Secure Messaging provides corporations with the spam filtering technology to solve this problem.
It provides a pro-active rather then just a re-active approach to filtering out spam. It is a proven
platform-independent technology that solves spam problem by implementing a gateway between
the internet and the corporate e-mail servers. ITA Secure Messaging was developed to allow ease of use and
flexibility that will provide immediate return on investment (ROI).
Our team is constantly doing research in working to provide the best anti-spam technology available for
businesses. Our goal is to make e-mail once again an affective and efficient tool for business
communication rather then a tool for sending spam.
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