SPAM - Old news? Not anymore
Greetings Organizing with Laura bloggers. For those of you not familiar with our organization I am the Business IT Strategist for Eliminate Chaos. What does a business IT Strategist do you ask? Well, I look at your current computing environment and processes. I then make recommendations of how to improve your IT systems to save you time and money.
Today I would like to talk about the SPAM issue that most face. I say most because the good news is that thanks to companies like Postini (now Google) We can enjoy a SPAM free life and just get legitimate messages in our inboxes. Sound too good to be true? Nope it is possible. Are you excited to learn more? Read on…
Lets cover the current methods of dealing with SPAM.
- Outlook Junk mail folder.
- 3rd party software installed on your PC.
- ISP spam blocker (Normally spam assassin).
- Enterprise software installed on your mail server.
- Outsourced SPAM service such as Google's Postini or Symantec.
So what is the big problem that we are trying to solve and why is it worse now more than ever?
On July 20, Postini protection technology detected and caught emails that contained a spoofed UPS package-tracking link intended to lure recipients into clicking it and downloading malware. This virus wave peaked at nearly 10 million messages on July 24. April showed peak spam volumes for 2008, but the overall level of spam remains high this summer. Statistics show that the average unprotected user would have received 36,000 in 2007. This year's July total shows a 68% growth rate in spam. In short, spam attacks in 2008 have not let up from previous years.
In July, Postini systems recorded the largest volume of email virus attacks of the year.
The spammers are getting far more sophisticated in their attacks and it is getting increasingly harder to tell the difference between a legitimate message from harmful spam. Typically a message containing a payload, if deployed will key log passwords off your PC effectively stealing your identity. The problem has grown way past the old days where it just cost you the time to delete the pesky messages.
Fortunately Google bought Postini and has made outsourced spam processing a very cost effective choice. Why is this the best out of the 5 different solutions I mentioned above? Because 365 days a year Postini is monitoring and fighting the battle for you. The other solutions can not react to the ever changing patterns that the spammers adopt. So what does all this cost you ask? Are you sitting down? $12.00 per user per year. A dollar a month. Heck your cable TV is more than that. Here is the link to the sign up page
Call Google crazy but I think they did the world a favor offering a great service for a great price. So why do I care? Well this is just a small sample of the advice we give our clients and besides, I enjoy sticking it to the spammers by passing on the tip. I also have a shameless plug to give for our services. All this might sound like mail nirvana to you, and it is - but you need someone to set-it up for you, as it requires a technical person with some knowledge of mail flow and redirection. Here is where you can hire us to do all that for you! Feel free to call the office and we can discuss your needs.
By the way, Google's Gmail uses Postini but if you are NOT on your own domain i.e. mycompany.com, you will not be able to use Postini. So mail such as Comcast, Yahoo & MSN are not an option. If you ask me, if you have your own domain & website you need to get off that old Hotmail account anyway and use you own domain. My first reaction when I see a Hotmail address on a business persons card is good grief but, we can save that discussion for a different time.
Safe Computing!
Robert Strasser
Business IT Strategist
