Secure Data, a member of the JSE-listed ERP.com Group, and the Southern African distributor for Trend security software, today announced the availability of Trend Micro's Spam Prevention Service for the Microsoft Windows platform. Designed to block non-productive and malicious spam at the Internet gateway, the Trend Micro Spam Prevention Service continues to address the growing urgency among organisations to protect themselves from the increasing prevalence of unsolicited e-mails, while providing enhanced performance and extended platform support for enterprise customers.
First released earlier this year for the Solaris platform, the Trend Micro Spam Prevention Service leverages gateway scanning software to block non-productive and malicious spam before it enters the network. Based on heuristic technology anti-spam filtering rules provided by Postini, Inc., a leading e-mail security service provider, this Trend Micro service delivers finely tuned and constantly adjusted heuristic engine files to ensure customers have the latest means of capturing the most elusive spam threats. Trend Micro Spam Prevention Service for Windows now makes this protection available to more Internet users through support on this widely used gateway server platform.
This latest release features a graphical user interface for familiarity and simplicity within the Windows environment. Additionally, based on internal testing, scanning throughput on Windows-based servers has more than doubled compared to original rates, providing efficiency with minimal impact to messaging traffic.
"The Trend Micro Spam Prevention Service is blocking about 8,000 pieces of spam a day, about 35-40% of our total e-mail, and thus I would definitely encourage organisations to go with this product. It's the most effective spam killer I've seen," commented Erik Coker, systems manager for Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District of Carrollton, Texas. "We're a public entity, which means we have a responsibility to spend money wisely and be available to the people we serve. Installation was easy; the next day I was getting calls saying: what did you do? This is terrific."
Whilst the volume of spam continues to increase, recent studies by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of the United States also suggest that the potential damage from these unsolicited messages are worsening. The FTC estimates that nearly all spam offering investment or business opportunities contain some kind of misleading or fraudulent information. The U.S. and Europe are working to pass legislation to punish 'spammers' and institute controls to protect e-mail users, however even industry analysts, such as Gartner Group (May 2003), are warning that legal measures alone will not stop spam. In the meantime, spam researchers are seeing new types of spam capable of delivering directory harvesting worms or behaviour monitoring scripts to unsuspecting users. It is also now common for spam to contain links to malicious code downloads, often from legitimate Web sites. The existence of malicious code inside of spam and the frequency of spam attacks suggest spam may soon be as great a threat as traditional viruses. Internet users need to implement simple and effective measures to protect themselves from the deluge of unwanted email they are expected to face in the next few years.
With frequently adapted anti-spam rules and the ability to layer with other content security technologies at the gateway, such as Trend Micro InterScan VirusWall and Trend Micro InterScan Messaging Security Suite, Trend Micro Spam Prevention Service offers customers a flexible defence system against the constantly changing landscape of spam. The integration of this service into Trend Micro Enterprise Protection Strategy will enable IT security administrators to deploy security policies from a central location for multiple Trend Micro products and services.
For further information, please contact Dean Brazier at tel. +27 11 258 7800; fax +27 11 258 7888; e-mail deanb@sd.co.za
Share
SecureData, an ERP.com company, is Africa's Premier IT Security Solution Provider. SecureData's solutions incorporate Antivirus and Content Security, Network Security, Intrusion Detection software, and Network Asset Management. SecureData's comprehensive "Managed Security Services" include design, audit, implementation, outsourcing and hosting. SecureData distributes, sells and supports category leading IT security products to the public, corporate and SME sectors throughout Africa as well as products and services to the SOHO and consumer markets through partnerships with ISPs. As well as being the sole distributor in Sub-Saharan Africa for Cell-ID and Trend Micro, SecureData is the Southern African distributor for USA-based BorderWare, UK-based Centennial and USA-based Network Privacy. For more information, visit SecureData at www.sd.co.za
ERP.com
ERP.com is a JSE-listed company focused on the implementation, integration and management of enterprise applications in an e-business environment. For more information, visit ERP.com at www.erpcom.co.za
Editorial contacts