Choosing the right spam solution

Computer Technology Review, Feb, 2004 by Dean Drako

The deluge of spam filling corporate inboxes has grown from a daily annoyance to a major drain on resources. Not only does spam now out-number legitimate e-mail messages, it is also becoming more sinister in scope, even carrying viruses that can cripple communication networks.

Dealing with spam can exhaust network storage, bandwidth and end-user support systems. Deciding what type of solution to combat this growing problem can be a daunting task for smaller IT organizations who may turn to a trusted reseller to help make this decision. After examining the customer's needs, the reseller can often help guide the customer through the maze of solutions available, ranging from service offerings, to software and hardware solutions.

Cost of Spam

In 2003, AOL reported that it blocked nearly 500 billion spam messages--an average of 1.4 billion spam messages daily. As alarming as this number is, industry experts are predicting that the onslaught of spam will worsen over the next four years.

Increasingly, decision makers are recognizing the potential financial damage to IT systems, which are unprepared to handle the expected exponential increase in spam. The Radicati Group, a market research firm in Palo Alto, CA, reports that currently spam costs a total of $20 billion a year worldwide in lost productivity and technology expenses and expects these costs will skyrocket to almost $200 billion within the next four years.

Anti-Spam Architectures

To deal with the growing spam problem, businesses must find ways to block incoming spam in real time while making sure that legitimate e-mail is not hindered. While there is an abundance of solutions available for blocking spam, there are only four main architectures:

* End-user software solutions

* Remote e-mail filtering services

* Enterprise software solutions

* Hardware devices

End-User Software Solutions

Typically end-user software solutions are inexpensive software packages that consumers can purchase and install directly onto their home PCs. This is an approach that many small businesses and home users take for fighting spam and viruses. With these software solutions, users can control filters directly and update their systems as often as they want, ultimately controlling the destiny of all e-mail--both spam and legitimate messages.

However, there are problems with end-user anti-spam software solutions. First, they use significant amounts of server resources, because all spam must be stored and handled by the mail server and the end user's PC. End-user software solutions are more hands-on, increasing the possibility of user error with complicated installation processes. One misstep with configuration can render the software incapable of blocking spam or leave it vulnerable to attack. Additionally, software solutions require manual spam and virus updates versus centrally managed update subscriptions often included with filtering services or hardware solutions.

Remote E-mail Filtering Services

To stop spam and viruses from entering the system in the first place, and to ease the concern of keeping spam filters current, many businesses turn to remote e-mail filtering services that can pre-process e-mail before it is delivered to the company. E-mail is delivered to the remote service first, and the service grooms the e-mail, rejects the spam, and sends on only the legitimate messages to the corporate server.

Such services can be expensive, and companies must be willing to let a third party have access to their e-mail. The security issues associated with sending all e-mail offsite are too challenging for many companies. For instance, financial or government institutions that deal with sensitive client or customer communications, must also follow rules set up by standards bodies such as the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) or NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) for handling these types of communications. When selecting a remote filtering service, these organizations have to ensure that the filtering service they choose also adheres to these rules and can do so reliably.

Additionally, allowing a remote service to manage e-mail communication increases the risk of losing access to e-mail altogether. If the server collapses at the remote site, companies utilizing their services for e-mail filtering will also experience this downtime. E-mail filtering services, therefore, introduce an additional dependency in the e-mail transmission chain thereby increasing the likelihood of problems.

Enterprise Software Solutions

Enterprise software solutions have been utilized for fighting spam and viruses for many years. Corporate IT departments can install software on the e-mail server or on a separate machine to process all incoming e-mail and eliminate spam either on the e-mail server or before it gets to the e-mail server. Unlike end-user software solutions that must be managed separately on each machine, enterprise software can be managed from a single location making technical support and maintenance easier to administer.