As an outsource security partner BAI provides managed security, managed firewall, managed ids, content filtering, internet security, network security, penetration testing, and vulnerability testing.

Ask anyone who uses e-mail and they will tell you their number-one complaint about working online is spam.  And it's no longer just a nuisance. Spam can seriously disrupt business communications. Spam comprises a third or more of all Internet e-mail. That means a third of network bandwidth and a third of the disk space dedicated to holding incoming mail is essentially wasted.

The vast cost of spam is being borne by its recipients.  By the end of this year, as much as 50 percent of all email traffic is expected to be Spam.  An estimated 15 billion e-mail messages are currently sent worldwide per day (1) (2), so spam could soon account for more than 7 billion e-mail messages daily, or 2.6 trillion messages per year.  AOL has recently stated that is has blocked 1 billion spam messages in just one day. (3)

To handle this enormous amount of data globally, a staggering amount of processing, bandwidth and storage capacity is required of about 2000 TB per day, which is equivalent to 1 million T1 circuits solely dedicated to delivering spam 24 hours a day.  The human cost is equally stunning: assuming that it takes a person one second to delete a message, it will take humanity a combined 222 years to process just a day’s worth of spam.  The infrastructure costs along with the lost productivity caused by spam will add up to more than $10 billion this year for US companies alone.

So How do we Fight Spam

Two complementary approaches have emerged in fighting spam: technical and legal.  While some states have already passed legislation there is still no US Federal law on the books dealing with spam.  And since spam is a truly global phenomenon, with more and more messages crossing international boarders, new international law and treaties will have to be implemented to address the problem.   Unfortunately, the legal process will be lengthy, costly, and complicated and will do little to physically prevent someone from sending spam or prevent you from receiving it.

A Technical Approach in Fighting Spam

Fortunately, there are increasingly effective software tools available to correctly identify and filter a large percentage of spam email from becoming deployed into the Internet. BAI Security is using a software tool from SurfControl called E-mail Filter to help fight and control spam within its client’s network.

The SurfControl E-mail Filter is a highly effective, scalable enterprise solution to fight the spam epidemic.  Once the E-mail Filter is running, it immediately protects the company email server by disabling any open relay functionality, which can be abused by spammers to send millions of unsolicited and potentially dangerous emails. 

At the heart of the SurfControl E-mail Filter, is the Anti-Spam Agent.  SurfControl maintains a proprietary database of more than 35,000 unique digital fingerprints which is used to positively identify millions of spam and junk e-mails.  A dedicated team of SurfControl staff is constantly updating the database.  SurfControl clients automatically receive a new fingerprint at least once a day with updated blocking signatures.

Leveraging SurfControl’s extensive content-filtering experience, the SurfControl E-mail Filter is one of the best available filtering technologies to deploy to ensure a spam-free enterprise. 

To learn more about how BAI Security and SurfControl can help you fight spam, call 630.836.8680 or email us at info@baisecurity.net. 

If you are a fan of SPAM the lunchmeat, check out www.spam.com

If you want to learn more about SurfControl, check out: http://www.surfcontrol.com/webintegration/productselection.asp?id=948

Bibliography

1 Channel One, Market Overview.

2 Cisco Systems, Inc., State of the Internet http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/779/govtaffs/factsNStats/stateinternet.html

3 Business Wire, Over One Billion Spam E-mails Now Blocked in One Day by AOL, March 5, 2003. http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030305/55356_1.html.

4 Major Techniques for Classifying Spam.  by Paris Trudeau and Dr. Richard Cullen with Dave Zwieback. http://www.surfcontrol.com/general/assets/whitepapers/New_Face_of_SPAM.pdf