South African companies of all sizes collectively lose millions of rand every year thanks to `harmless`, inappropriate use of their e-mail systems by employees.
And that excludes the cost of damage caused by viruses that enter the business` networks via e-mail.
So says Marius Swart, GM: Security Business Unit at IS (The Internet Solution) which has launched an outsourced mail firewall solution designed to combat misuse of the corporate e-mail system and viruses spread via e-mail.
"Mail Firewall has an entirely different function to traditional network security products which control who has access to the corporate network. Mail Firewall is a content security firewall controlling what has access."
"It can control the movement of commercially sensitive data, give legal liability protection, block junk mail, eliminate inappropriate use - such as the sending and receiving of pornography - and enable virus scanning, message logging and management reporting," he explains.
"It can also minimise the quantity of e-mail traffic received by a corporate from the Internet. By blocking all unnecessary mail before it passes down the company`s leased line, bandwidth utilisation is more efficient."
A pilot implementation of Mail Firewall at a local financial institution revealed that around 50% of the company`s inbound e-mail traffic was quarantined (blocked), resulting in significant bandwidth savings.
"Few employees think twice about sending or receiving huge graphics files containing jokes, greeting cards, pictures or videos clips from colleagues and friends. But if a company employs 1 000 people earning an average annual salary of R60 000,00 and each one spends five minutes per day opening this type of e-mail, the annual productivity loss to the organisation amounts to a staggering R708 437,50 per year."
"Smaller companies are not immune. Just 50 users opening one `fun` e-mail a day could result in an annual loss to the company of R35 421,00," he says.
"Many companies have a traditional firewall and therefore have access control, but over 80% do not have content control. This is next to useless from a security perspective. If international airports had only passport checks and no customs, air travel would be totally unsafe. Most studies show that 75% of organisational security breaches are in fact by people within the organisation who have already passed the access security controls," he adds.
According to Swart, the Mail Firewall can be configured to block mail based on:
Specified attachment types, e.g. jpg, gif or avi`s (block, restrict or strip attachments)
User defined keywords with the lexical text censor (quick and effective method to block viruses or prevent the distribution of confidential material)
Viruses, spam, virus hoaxes, chain letters and other forms of unsolicited e-mail
Messages larger than a specified size (Set limits for message size during business hours and delays the sending of large e-mails or mass mail-outs to scheduled off-peak times. Allows exceptions for urgent messages)
Messages with more than a specified number of recipients or attachments
Relay attempts from specific domains/addresses
The message source or destination ...and more
These parameters can be changed at any time and can also be applied to individual employees within the organisation.
"The ability of Mail Firewall to apply filters to users and groups combined with its other features makes it one of the most comprehensive of all solutions currently available. In addition, companies can make use of this solution as a service, with the responsibility of ensuring that the service is always available rests with IS," Swart concludes.
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