E-Mail

Fight Spam With VOP modusMail

Vircom's VOP modusMail uses many spamstermination methods including regularly updated scripts, high security on intranet relays, and a reverse DNS lookup to check incoming mail.

by Wayne Kawamoto [April 4, 2002]

Vircom Inc., a developer of Internet infrastructure server solutions, announced that its recent launch of VOP modusMail should enable service providers to immediately eradicate spam e-mails from the inboxes of their subscriber clientele. According to the company's early informal customer feedback, a typical ISP client is blocking on average 10,000 to 15,000 spam messages per day by using the product.

Vircom says that the effectiveness of VOP modusMail may be attributed to Vircom's Sieve scripts and Automated Intelligent Content Filtering (AICF). Sieve is a standard Internet scripting language (RFC 3028) that has been defined for e-mail filtering.

Vircom Sieve scripts were developed by an in-house team of spam busters who track all forms of unsolicited e-mail found throughout the Internet. According to the company, each day, new scripts are being written, updated, categorized and made accessible to all VOP modusMail SP customers. VOP modusMail is designed to retrieve scripts from Vircom's centralized server and clients then chose specific protection against a multitude of fraudulent schemes that include financial, pornographic, medical, educational, and gambling spam e-mails.

Furthermore, the company says that its spam blocking requires enhanced intelligence in the form of a deep knowledge-base system that involves varying the levels of continuous feedback from the VOP modusMail field. New script developments are analyzed, validated and sent back out into the market. Over time, the Sieve script database takes on an organic, artificially intelligent nature to determine whether e-mail is spam. This approach may ensure that the number of genuine e-mails that do get blocked—known as false positives—are close to nil. Moreover, administrators possess the ability to review all caught spam and released any messages that are considered a false positive.

Vircom enables IT administrators to enforce authentication at the SMTP and POP/IMAP levels to prevent anyone from sending e-mail through a server if they cannot provide a user-name and password for a POP or IMAP account. Active Connection Control provides access to multiple Real-Time Blacklist websites where directories of known spammers may be found. As an additional precaution, to verify whether the domain name of external messages received actually exist, administrators may configure VOP modusMail to perform Reverse DNS look-up.

The Block Scan Attack feature is designed to let VOP modusMail slow down or deny access to spammers attempting to either send an e-mail to a high number of people within a company or to exploit a company server for the purpose of relaying a high volume of spam e-mails to the outside world. To do this, VOP modusMail tracks e-mail IP addresses that establish many (pre-defined by administrator) connections within a specific period of time. As a fully integrated solution, VOP modusMail also features an anti-virus engine that is powered by Norman Data Defense Systems.

Said Bertrand Houle, vice-president, sales and marketing at Vircom, "We are forming the basis of a deep intelligent Spam knowledge-base system that precisely determines the difference between what is spam and what is legitimate e-mail. The feedback is very exciting as ISP and enterprise customers are instantly reducing the number of spam e-mails by as much as 80 percent. In the coming weeks and months that target should quickly reach 90 to 99 percent."

Pricing
VOP modusMail SP for service providers is offered at a list price of $4,195 for a basic server package and $5,795 for a Suite package that includes 24/7 SPAM/VIRUS protection, web mail, an exchanger and POP3 migration service. Both come with one full year of service including 24/7 anti-virus/anti-spam auto-updates.

VOP modusMail for enterprises includes 24/7 SPAM/VIRUS protection, advanced web mail, an exchanger and POP3 migration service and starts at a list price of $2,995 for 100 users, $3,995 for 300 users, and $4,995 for 500 users. Each one consists of one full year of service including 24/7 anti-virus/anti-spam auto-updates.

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