The Problem of Outbound Spam

Outbound Spam is a Serious Problem Today spam is ~80% of all emails, but this does not show the increasing absolute volume of spam, which doubles roughly every 12-18 months. Outbound spam is the content sent from Web hosting companies, SaaS email providers, Internet access service providers, free email service providers, and on site email managed service providers. This creates problems on a number of levels.

Where Does Spam Come From?
Zombies Compromised accounts Malicious use of email accounts Current Solutions Are Not Effective Use of standard inbound spam technologies in reverse Blocking of Port 25 for outbound email Blocking entire ranges of IP addresses Manual handling by the abuse team The Consequences of Outbound Spam Significantly higher costs of providing service Corporate reputation can be damaged Blacklisted IPs create problems Remediation efforts are poor, resulting in unhappy customers Increases the amount of network traffic What Features are Important in a Solution? Among the many features used to remedy outbound spam, there are 3 that are critical: Low false positives Adjusting filtering thresholds Identifying senders of Spam Possible Solutions Multiple layers of defence- perimeter defence, content filters and protocol filters The placement of gates between the firewall and the mail server can be used to process incoming mail and authenticate users. Administrator setting can also be optimized to reduce spam-related problems Rebel Networks Outbound Spam Solutions and Services Our managed email security service offers comprehensive protection against a wide range of email threats using a combination of proven spam filters, leading anti-virus engines, fraud protection, content filtering, and email attack protection. Unlike appliances and enterprise software solutions that require integration, migration and a significant amount of ongoing maintenance, the MX Logic Email Defence Service is effortless and highly effective. Our solution requires no upfront capital or integration, is flexible and easy to administer, and offers rapid activation. MX Logic Email Defence Service supports SMTP over TLS, providing email delivery encryption which allows customers to easily send and receive email over a secure, end-to-end encrypted tunnel. Summary Our basic conclusions are that outbound spam is a serious issue and is getting worse. Conventional solutions are not adequate to fully solve the problem. Therefore, new technologies and approaches are necessary to ensure that outbound spam is minimized. Many customers will use service providers that address outbound spam in a granular way. For the FULL article, visit www.rebelnetworks.com, blog section