Tag: Security

May Email Security News: New Undersea Cables Feed African Botnets

Email Security Industry news from May 2010 with commentary (May 31, 2010)

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Interesting question from a customer: “Why should we block .EXEs?”

The majority of phishing attempts with drive-by-downloads try to entice you to download EXE files and run them locally. EXE files should always be blocked. You can open certain files on a case-by-case basis and in a very controlled fashion, but that’s the extent of it. (May 26, 2010)

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SURBL: The catch of the day

There it is again: another email in your Inbox from an obscure financial institution, requesting that you click on the available link and be redirected to an unknown, unsecured website. Prompted for personal details or your credit card number, you hesitate to enter this information thinking something seems fishy. (May 19, 2010)

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Here come the spam police

The German courts may have just opened the floodgates. Their top criminal court ruled this week that home wireless users can be held responsible for not password-protecting their wireless connections. If the unprotected connection is used for illegal file downloads, the owner can be fined up to 100 Euros (currently $126). (May 17, 2010)

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Facebook or Faceblock? Facebook implementing their own ‘email security’?

Facebook is coming under scrutiny (again!), this time about their email scanning policies. Most of you are probably in the email security industry and are well aware that any email security solution will scan a message to divert or block spam, phishing, etc. (May 12, 2010)

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April Email Security News: McAfee update error impacts many systems

A summary of links to articles that I have found interesting in the last few weeks. Includes my own commentary. (Apr 30, 2010)

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Six items often overlooked when purchasing an email security solution

As discussed in an earlier post , the battle against spam is an ongoing one and requires you to do your due diligence when selecting an email security solution to protect one of your business’ most important assets: email. (Apr 26, 2010)

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Why can’t you stop this spam?

Maybe you’ve seen more spam hitting your Inbox over the past couple of months and wondering, “Why am I paying for filtering? This stuff is obviously spam – why can’t you guys stop it?” The main challenges of being in the spam filtering business are dealing with clients’ expectations on the one hand, and the sheer size of the spam/malware machine on the other. (Apr 16, 2010)

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Anti-Social Networking

Web 2.0 is leading us to operate and collaborate more through our web browsers than ever before. Consequently, sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace are being used more aggressively for everything from chatting to marketing. Spammers are loving this. (Apr 07, 2010)

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March Email Security News

A summary of links to recent articles that I have found interesting in the last few weeks. Includes my own commentary. (Apr 02, 2010)

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Why you shouldn’t cut your email security costs

These days, running a business without email security exposes you to huge, unnecessary risks and costs. What is the cost of security? It should not have a price tag. Imagine having to go through thousands of emails (mostly spam) every day, just to make sure an important message does not get deleted. (Mar 29, 2010)

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Looked at our site or downloaded our software? Then allow us to harass you!

Some companies take their marketing tools a little too far. Download their software for a trial, or even just visit their website, and you just opened the door to daily email and phone calls from aggressive sales staff pushing their wares. I know the market is competitive, but can we please let the customer make their decision in peace? (Mar 12, 2010)

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Battle of the Newsletters: Marketing 1, Security 0

While working on a False Positive (yes, it can happen to the best of us), I was stunned to discover how marketing people can bend email security rules. (Feb 22, 2010)

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Do you have what it takes to be an Email Security Reseller?

So, you want to be an email security reseller? Sure, here's the form, here's the discount you'll get, here's where you sign...Not so fast! (Feb 10, 2010)

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Less Linux, more Windows

I’ve always been a pro-Linux type of guy. I started using Unix back in 1992 (SunOS) and then onto Slackware, Red Hat, Ubuntu. Linux offered so many more features, security, power to do anything and a reliability Windows couldn’t dream of at the time. Linux was a true multitasking OS, had a firewall, and all internet clients and servers one may want or need: pop3, smtp, http, ftp, ssh. All these were virtually impossible to do on MS-DOS or Windows, and I’m not even talking about the various crashes and ridiculous uptimes of the early Microsoft platforms. Since then, and up until a few months ago, it’s always been clear to me: reliability and security on Linux; office work, graphical user interface and leisure on Windows. (Feb 05, 2010)

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How would you punish a spammer?

“Last time out I suggested sentencing spammers to some quality time in a maximum security cell with an ex-biker named "Tiny." But I think that's too good for these people. They should be strung up by their thumbs and forced to watch ShamWow infomercials and Rick Astley videos until their ears bleed.” Robert Cringely, InfoWorld 1 (Feb 03, 2010)

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Incompetent email security spam filters cause historic business to change name

The Beaver is, at 90 years old, Canada’s second oldest magazine. Founded in 1920 and named after Canada’s symbol and fur-trading history, the Hudson's Bay Company publication is devoted to popularizing Canadian history, aiming to make Canadians more aware and appreciative of their heritage. Two weeks ago, the venerable magazine had to change its name to Canada’s History because its newsletter and emails were being trapped by spam filters around the world. (Jan 29, 2010)

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Spam: Surveying the Surveys

Another year has passed and it seems everyone is busy publishing their year-end security reviews, survey results, and fearless predictions for the upcoming year. (Jan 20, 2010)

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Welcome back, dear Customer!

Email Security product and solution vendors rely heavily on customer loyalty and retention. The recipe for achieving this is different for every company. What never changes is the total joy of winning back a customer that left for some reason, tried the competition and then returned. (Jan 15, 2010)

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10 Resolutions You Shouldn’t Break This Year

It's that time of the year again..time to make (and break) resolutions. Here are some things to help you keep your email and network safe from malicious attacks. Resolutions you don't want to break! (Jan 08, 2010)

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