MessageLabs has warned that spammers are already modifying their tactics when it comes to the emerging trend of using audio rather than text attachments in unsolicited mail.
In a statement, MessageLabs claimed that, following the first spam campaign involving audio files on 17 October 2007, which attempted to control the value of stock for “nefarious reasons”, spammers are now moving on from simply attaching audio to mail to linking through to content hosted on multimedia sites such as YouTube.
“This recent trend proves that spamming techniques are becoming more innovative,” said MessageLabs in its statement. “As image spam shifts from email attachments to images on free image-hosting sites, [we] believe that it is only a matter of time before the spammers apply the same approach to audio spam and upload the message to free multimedia-hosting sites such as YouTube, Google Video and MySpace.”
Spammers used attached MP3 music files to try to “sneak messages past spam filters”, said MessageLabs. The spam run of 15 million emails lasted 36 hours and used Storm worm-infected computers for the purposes of dissemination, MessageLabs said.
The MP3 file names were music-related, including files called “beatles.mp3″, “britney.mp3″ and “elvis.mp3″. They contained a poor-quality, 25-second voice track promoting a stock offering from Exit Only Incorporated for its Text4Cars.com website. The spam did not contain any detected malicious code.
The ePolicy Institute and MessageLabs have combined forces to provide a free Best Practice Guide to implementing and enforcing email and web acceptable usage policy (AUP) across your organisation to help protect your organisation’s assets, future, and reputation at risk. Access AUP Best Practice Guide here – but they do ask you to create an account first!
MessageLabs, a leading provider of integrated messaging and web security services to businesses worldwide, announced the results of its MessageLabs Intelligence Report for March 2007. Quarter on quarter spam levels have raised to 76.3 percent, their highest in two years. Virus and botnet activity has also increased. The report highlights the impact of increased spam levels on small-to-medium sized businesses (SME) as these organizations receive more than double the volume of spam per user each month than in enterprise organizations.
Gartner’s latest ‘magic quadrant’ 2006 report on “E-mail Security Boundary” rates the following vendors in the top leaders/visionaries quadrant:
- Postini (#1 in completeness of vision)
- Secure Computing
- IronPort Systems
- MessageLabs
- Symantec
- Microsoft (#1 in ability to execute)
Other leaders are:
- Proofpoint
- BorderWare Technologies
- Tumbleweed Communications
- SonicWALL
- Clearswift
- Marshal
Source: Garner, 2006
Written on 01 April 2007
by Dicontas Blog Admin under
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Tagged with BorderWare, clearswift, email-security, Gartner, IronPort, magic-quadrant, marshall, MessageLabs, microsoft, postini, Proofpoint, secure-computing, Sonicwall, Symantec, tumbleweed
MessageLabs on Thursday announced upgrades to its content and image control service offerings that feature greater accuracy and can scan more document types for allowable content.
MessageLabs’ Email Content Control 3.0 and Email Image Control 2.0 are offered as managed services that scan inbound and outbound e-mails for inappropriate, confidential or malicious content sent or received by an organization’s employees. The services help companies implement acceptable e-mail use policies and ensure compliance with a range of government and industry regulations, according to company officials.
The upgraded services now feature the ability to scan within Microsoft Office document attachments and include customizable notifications, so that e-mail administrators can change the text within a notification to better fit the organization, they say.
Email Content Control 3.0 also features a reorganized management interface that makes rule details easier to find, and can decompress files for scanning. The service can use the same security policies implemented by a company’s e-mail system, and rules can be set on a user-by-user basis, officials say. Email Image Control 2.0 includes new algorithms for analysing image attributes in order to accurately distinguish inappropriate content, officials say.
“Businesses are increasingly dependent on email as a primary communication tool,” said Michael D. Osterman, President, Osterman Research. “But it presents several risks for controlling confidential and valuable information from leaving the organization. Content filtering — inspecting the content of messages before they are sent — will assume a more important role within messaging management as a means of mitigating risks and managing corporate liability, and to make businesses feel more confident about their email systems.”
Dicontas is now a MessageLabs Associate partner and is authorised to sell MessageLabs email security services.
MessageLabs is a provider of best-of-breed managed email security services for email, web and instant messaging communications – protecting globally over 13,000 customers from the latest viruses, spam and inappropriate content.
For more information, please visit Dicontas Services for MessageLabs Image Filtering & Content Control page.
Dicontas offers centralised email administration services to complement use of this managed service by helping to decrease the total cost of ownership and other business / legal risks when introducing and utilising email monitoring within the workplace.
On 4 January 2007, Cisco announced a definitive agreement to acquire IronPort Systems, a provider of enterprise messaging security products.
The IronPort acquisition will allow Cisco to move into the fast-growing e-mail security market, which is currently valued at approximately $850 million and growing at a rate of approximately 40% annually. The key technology value that Cisco will receive is a strategic foundation on which to begin building a security infrastructure for unified communications, including e-mail.
Gartner Analysis : The consolidation in the e-mail security market is now almost complete. Other vendors will find it difficult to compete with industry leaders Cisco, Microsoft and Symantec in the enterprise market. IBM and (potentially) Juniper Networks are the only other major vendors that have a strategic interest in this market, though BorderWare and Proofpoint remain as respected independent players. Gartner believes the two remaining service providers, MessageLabs and Postini, will likely be acquired by telecom providers in their respective markets.
Extracted from Gartner – IronPort Buy Will Make Cisco a Major E-Mail Security Player
Written on 09 January 2007
by Dicontas Blog Admin under
News
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Tagged with BorderWare, Cisco, email-security, email_filtering, IBM, IronPort, Juniper-Networks, market-growth, MessageLabs, microsoft, postini, Proofpoint, Symantec