|
|
Adware: How To Beat The Sneakiest Software
By Joel Walsh
Adware, software dedicated to displaying advertising, can really slow down any business that depends on its computers. Adware promoters use some cunning tricks to get you to install their software on your machine. Here's what to look...
O Software Livre, realmente nos libertará dos custos?
Muitos papas da área de tecnologia estão pregando que o software livre será a solução dos problemas brasileiros. O mundo inteiro está se voltando para o software livre como se fosse a uma nova religião, onde tudo que está fora disso é coisa de...
Online Reservation Software - Online Event Bookings
Travel agencies rely on online reservation software to handle
large volume bookings for large events such as conferences,
sporting events, concerts and political conventions. Previously,
participants registered for the event and made separate...
Provisioning/User Management System Upgrades: Part Two – Building Awareness And Building Approval
Somewhere in the world is a person who wants to see their provisioning/user management systems get a sorely needed upgrade. But they seem to be getting nowhere.
The technical requirements are unarticulated. Key decisionmakers in the company...
Those Annoying Spam Emails
Commonly referred to as spam, unsolicited commercial email is becoming a big problem today. If you’ve ever had your email address on a spam list, then you know how annoying it is to have to wade through dozens of advertisements to get to the mail...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Evict the Spammers from Your Inbox
Block Spam and Other Email Threats From Entering Your Gateway Spam, commonly defined as unsolicited commercial email, is a powerful advertising channel for many products and services. As a result, spamming has become a profitable business, driven by the low cost of sending email compared to other direct marketing techniques. The high return on investment for spammers has resulted in an overwhelming volume of unwanted messages in personal and business email boxes. Consider this: Conducting a direct mail campaign costs an average of $1.39 per person, meaning that a response rate of 1 in 14 is necessary just to break even on a product with a $20 gross profit. Selling the same item via unsolicited spam email costs only $0.0004 per person, meaning that a response rate of 1 in 50,000 gets the seller back to break-even; anything above that is gravy. With profit margins like these, it’s easy to see why spammers will try anything to get past anti spam technology to deliver their messages to your inbox.
Types of Spam Threats The recent onset of fraudulent spam variants such as phishing and spoofing pose an even greater risk than the spam volume clogging email servers. Spammers use techniques such as phishing and spoofing to fool users into opening messages that, at first glance, appear innocuous.
Phishing Phishing is a specific type of spam message that solicits personal information from the recipient. Phishers use social engineering techniques to fool end users into believing that the message originated from a trusted sender, making these attacks especially dangerous because they often con victims into divulging social security numbers, bank account information or credit card numbers. In one six-month period from November 2003 to May 2004, phishing attacks increased in frequency by 4000%, and the trend continues upward.
An example of phishing is an email that appears to come from a bank requesting that users log into their account to update or correct personal information. When the users follow a link embedded in the email, they are redirected to a site that looks and behaves like the expected bank website. However, unbeknownst to the soon-to-be identity theft victims, the site is actually controlled by the scam artists who sent the email; any and all information entered by the victim can now be used in a variety of ways, none of them good.
Spoofing Spoofing is a deceptive form of spam that hides the domain of the spammer or the spam’s origination point. Spammers often hijack the domains of well-known businesses or government entities to make spam filters think the communication is coming from a legitimate source.
Today’s spammers are more crafty than ever before and have begun blending elements of both phishing and spoofing into their messages, further spinning their web of deception. The toxic combination of spoofing and phishing presents a major threat that can trick most anyone into providing personal information to a stranger.
Toothless Legislation On January 1, 2004, President Bush signed into law the “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003,” or “CAN-SPAM” Act. While well intentioned, CAN-SPAM has done little or nothing to curb the flow of unwanted email. In fact, an estimated 97% of all spam email sent in 2004 violated the Act, and the United States still dwarfs other nations
in terms of the origin of spam, with CipherTrust research revealing that an astonishing 56.77% of all spam comes from U.S.-based IP addresses. While CAN-SPAM was designed to decrease the overall volume of spam, the exact opposite has happened: in 2004, spam accounted for approximately 77% of all email traffic, and phishing attacks continue to increase exponentially, with studies showing an increase of 4000% from November 2003 to May 2004.
Anti Spam Software for the Desktop The dramatic increase in spam volume has prompted a corresponding surge in stand-alone anti spam software solutions for the desktop, all with varying levels of effectiveness. Some anti spam software uses text filtering to screen incoming messages for known characteristics of spam, while other solutions rely solely on reputation systems that monitor and categorize email senders by IP address according to their sending behavior. Still other anti spam software uses “challenge/response filters” to block unapproved mail until the sender responds (manually) to a challenge email sent to their email account to verify his or her identity.
With so many different methods of filtering spam, no single software-based desktop anti spam solution is capable of effectively stopping spam before it reaches the inbox. The only way to successfully fight spam is to create an anti spam “cocktail” including reputation services, text filters, constant updates and a host of other best-of-breed spam blocking methods. Just as importantly, an effective anti spam solution should reside at the email gateway, not at the desktop. Without protection at the gateway, mail servers waste massive amounts of bandwidth and storage space processing every message, wanted or not, and end users face the unenviable task of deciding what to do with the countless spam messages that successfully reach them.
Take a Consolidated Approach to Anti Spam Although it takes a person only a moment to process a message and identify it as spam, it is difficult to automate that human process because no single message characteristic consistently identifies spam. In fact, there are hundreds of different message characteristics that may indicate an email is spam, and an effective anti spam solution must be capable of employing multiple spam detection techniques.
In addition to effectively identifying spam, businesses must be assured that legitimate mail is not blocked in error. Even one false positive, or incorrectly blocked email, can have a significant impact on businesses today. Accurate spam blocking requires a combination of tools to examine various message criteria combined with real-time research and intelligence data.
By aggregating multiple spam detection technologies like text filtering, reputation services, traffic analysis and other best-of-breed techniques, and placing the solution at the email gateway in a hardened appliance, enterprises can retake control of the inbox.
About the Author
Dr. Paul Judge is Chief Technology Officer at CipherTrust, the industry's largest provider of enterprise email security. The company’s flagship product, IronMail provides a best of breed enterprise anti spam solution designed to stop spam, phishing attacks and other email-based threats. Learn more by visiting www.ciphertrust.com today.
|
|
|
|
|
Tucows Downloads - Download Freeware and Shareware Software |
Download freeware, shareware, and demos. Maintains over 45000 software titles that are tested, rated, reviewed and ready to download. |
www.tucows.com |
  |
Free Software Downloads and Software Reviews - Download.com |
Download shareware, freeware and Demo software for PC, Mac, Linux, and Handhelds categorized into categories, plus software reviews. |
www.download.com |
  |
Computer software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
This includes application software such as a word processor, which enables a ... Application software is often purchased separately from computer hardware. ... |
en.wikipedia.org |
  |
Shareware.com - Search for shareware programs and free software ... |
Search for shareware programs from more than a dozen downloadable software directories. |
www.shareware.com |
  |
Jumbo: Free & Shareware MP3 files, Games, Screen Savers & Computer ... |
Source of free and shareware computer programs and utilities for PC and Mac. Evaluate software and read product reviews. Download games and screen savers. |
www.jumbo.com |
  |
Computer Software in the Yahoo! Directory |
Browse categories featuring sites devoted to computer software, including shareware and freeware download sites, operating systems, desktop customization, ... |
dir.yahoo.com |
  |
IEEE Software |
IEEE Computer Society's magazine covering all aspects of software, including software engineering. |
www.computer.org |
  |
Free Downloads on ZDNet | Shareware, Trialware, Evaluation Software |
ZDNet's Software Directory is the Web's largest library of software downloads. Covering software for Windows, Mac, and Mobile systems, ZDNet's Software ... |
downloads.zdnet.com |
  |
FSF - The Free Software Foundation |
Free software is a matter of liberty not price. Think of "free" as in "free speech". |
www.fsf.org |
  |
Apple - Software |
Software products for your digital life. ... The perfect addition for professional review. QuickTime Broadcaster. Encoding software for live events. ... |
www.apple.com |
  |
Open Directory - Computers: Software |
In Partnership with AOL Search. about dmoz | report abuse/spam | help. the entire directory, only in Computers/Software. Top: Computers: Software (38471) ... |
dmoz.org |
  |
freshmeat.net: Welcome to freshmeat.net |
About: The Web browser is probably the most frequently used software today, ... Web professionals can use the software for functional testing and regression ... |
freshmeat.net |
  |
Software - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF) |
Listing of the GNU software packages. |
www.gnu.org |
  |
Sun Software |
Get enterprise-class software--Solaris 10 OS, the Java Enterprise System, ... Sun Java StorageTek Software reduces cost and complexity with a single, ... |
www.sun.com |
  |
Internet Real Estate.com -- owns and operates a portfolio of the ... |
SOFTWARE.COM · SWEEPSTAKES.COM · PHONE.COM PODCAST.COM ... Software.com | Sweepstakes.com | Phone.com | Podcast.com | Shop.com | Safety.com ... |
www.internetrealestate.com |
  |
Joel on Software |
A weblog by Joel Spolsky, a programmer working in New York City, about software and software companies. |
www.joelonsoftware.com |
  |
Amazon.com Software: Computer & video games, business, accounting ... |
Online shopping for computer & video games, business & office productivity software, software from Microsoft, Apple, Adobe & more; accounting, antivirus, ... |
www.amazon.com |
  |
IBM Software - Home Page |
IBM home page for all of its software products, including Lotus and Tivoli, with keyword search, category browse and AZ product names. |
www.ibm.com |
  |
Opera web browser: Homepage |
Copyright © 2006 Opera Software ASA. All rights reserved. Skip navigation. Opera Software ... Copyright Opera Software ASA . All rights reserved. ... |
www.opera.com |
  |
Google Directory - Computers > Software |
Search only in Software Search the Web ... Software Categorized by Letter: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z ... |
www.google.com |
  |
|