The first thing people think about when defending their computers and networks is an up-to-date antivirus program. Without this most basic protection, your computer will get a virus, which could just slow it down or potentially bring the pc to a complete standstill!
So anti-virus software is the answer? An anti-virus solution on it's own is not the answer to all of your problems, it can only protect you so much; in fact test have shown that a new pc running Windows XP if left connected to the Internet unprotected will be infected with viruses and remotely controlled via unauthorised persons within 20 minutes! To protect you against hackers and often to prevent spyware and 'scumware' from communicating directly with their servers about information it may have picked up from your pc, a firewall should form the key part of your e-security solution. Previously, the targets of hackers were large institutions, banks and government organisations; now hackers try to steal your personal information, including bank details and passwords directly from your PC on a daily basis.
But perhaps you don't consider that your data is particularly valuable? You will be the one who suffers the consequences when it is destroyed, and these consequences are usually expressed in economic terms. If you lose your data, you will have to pay someone to try and recover it for you, and if your computer is illegally hijacked and used to attack others, then you will also have to handle any legal issues that may result from this.
What will a firewall do to limit the danger to your systems? A decent firewall is sometimes referred to as a 'choke-point' or 'bridge'. Every piece of data that comes into your network has to go through the firewall in order that data of undesirable content and unauthorised users cannot gain access to your computer or network.
A good firewall will also hide the fact from others, that you are actually connected to the Internet, stopping software that pings, sniffs and queries IP addresses in the hope of finding a system to attack.
A firewall will cloak me, but which one do I need? There are two different types of firewall available for you to use; a software firewall that is loaded onto your computer and a hardware firewall. In truth, both types are software, but the hardware one is a dedicated firewall appliance, whose only job is to perform firewall functionality. A clear advantage of a hardware firewall, is that if you happen to install some sort of maleware or virus on your system, it cannot take over your firewall.
Unified Threat Management firewall functionality Unified Threat Management products are defined as those that act as firewalls, include intrusion detection and protection, and also deal with viruses.
Does your current firewall perform content filtering, spam filtering, intrusion detection and anti-virus duties? All of these functions are usually on a number of different pieces of hardware, taking up valuable space in your server racks. The technology within business grade firewalls has become considerably more robust, and paved the way to add these additional, but vital functions to the one appliance.
The administration time has been cut significantly, as there is only one appliance; product selection is quicker and easier, as is product integration and ongoing support. With only one appliance, troubleshooting also becomes a lot less of an issue. If the firewall were to fail, then only one piece of hardware needs to be swapped out; which means that your business can be back up and running faster.
Winding up In conclusion a good firewall should do the following things: * Protect your personal data * Protect your computers resources * Protect your reputation and that of your business * Protect your liability
Friday, January 2, 2009
Anti spam Enterprise Level
Every one of us knows how spam impacts us. Every day we either get a ton of spam - or if we're fairly well protected by spam filters - only a few pieces.
Like a large number of people, I don't use any spam filters. Ah. You think I'm insane. But wait. My problem is that I get a lot of email from marketing types which I want to receive. And the spam filtering software is not very sensitive to my needs. Even white-listing doesn't always work. So, I prefer to get all that spam and just delete it.
Now this solution can work for me despite the time it takes to delete my daily overdose of spam. However, at the enterprise level, it's a whole different story. If you have a relatively large internal network with even a modest number of email users, you're looking at a major problem. And the more users you have, the worse the problem is.
Sure, you can put up software on the mail server. Works, kind of. But pretty soon you may find you need to upgrade the mail server. And that's after you already put it on a stand-alone machine.
Rather than continuing to buy ever more expensive software to run on a machine that keeps needing to be upgraded, you might want to think about a dedicated anti spam appliance.
To give you some idea of what's possible let's take a look at Barracuda Networks dedicated anti spam appliance. All you need to do is put this baby in front of your mail server. I say baby, advisedly because this one will learn by doing and by training provided by your users.
Dean Drako, CEO of Barracuda Networks said, "Bayesian filtering is still one of the most accurate defenses against spam. The new plug-ins allow users to directly train the Bayesian filter, making the Barracuda Spam Firewall even more accurate based on the users individual email preferences. Viruses and other threats can infect the network quickly if they are not stopped at the network edge. With Intent Analysis our customers have an advantage over these threats because the Barracuda Spam Firewall is able to block them real time. Consequently we have consistently been a first responder when some of the most malicious virus attacks have hit, saving our customers from potentially devastating damage to their networks."
This is one beautiful little machine. A Barracuda Spam Firewall can support from 1,000 to 30,000 active users. It can usually be installed in less than five minutes and receives automatic hourly updates for new forms of spam and viruses. It has a 10 layer defense system beyond the use of open source anti spam and anti virus solutions: denial of service and security protection, IP block list, rate control, virus check with archive decompression, proprietary virus check, user specified rules, spam fingerprint check, Intent Analysis, spam rule-based scoring, and Bayesian analysis. Plus it also does both inbound and outbound email filtering with the inclusion of sophisticated outbound email filtering techniques (just in case you've got a spam zombie on board or somebody's got an infected PC).
However, it isn't exactly cheap. Still, when you consider the time, bandwidth, user frustration and potential hardware upgrade costs, the price may look a lot more reasonable. You can check it out at http://www.barracudanetworks.com/
If you are in the market for an anti-spam appliance, the Barracuda Spam Firewall isn't your only choice. The impact of spam on internet businesses - even those who primarily use it for just email - is so great that a simple search for "anti spam appliance" will find you a number of alternatives to examine. Even McAfee is getting into the anti spam hardware game.
I'm hoping that it won't be too long before I can pick up a Bayesian multi-level anti spam, anti virus firewall appliance for my home PC that keeps me safe and cuts my need to delete without deep-sixing the email I want or costing me more than I can afford. I suspect it's on the way.
Like a large number of people, I don't use any spam filters. Ah. You think I'm insane. But wait. My problem is that I get a lot of email from marketing types which I want to receive. And the spam filtering software is not very sensitive to my needs. Even white-listing doesn't always work. So, I prefer to get all that spam and just delete it.
Now this solution can work for me despite the time it takes to delete my daily overdose of spam. However, at the enterprise level, it's a whole different story. If you have a relatively large internal network with even a modest number of email users, you're looking at a major problem. And the more users you have, the worse the problem is.
Sure, you can put up software on the mail server. Works, kind of. But pretty soon you may find you need to upgrade the mail server. And that's after you already put it on a stand-alone machine.
Rather than continuing to buy ever more expensive software to run on a machine that keeps needing to be upgraded, you might want to think about a dedicated anti spam appliance.
To give you some idea of what's possible let's take a look at Barracuda Networks dedicated anti spam appliance. All you need to do is put this baby in front of your mail server. I say baby, advisedly because this one will learn by doing and by training provided by your users.
Dean Drako, CEO of Barracuda Networks said, "Bayesian filtering is still one of the most accurate defenses against spam. The new plug-ins allow users to directly train the Bayesian filter, making the Barracuda Spam Firewall even more accurate based on the users individual email preferences. Viruses and other threats can infect the network quickly if they are not stopped at the network edge. With Intent Analysis our customers have an advantage over these threats because the Barracuda Spam Firewall is able to block them real time. Consequently we have consistently been a first responder when some of the most malicious virus attacks have hit, saving our customers from potentially devastating damage to their networks."
This is one beautiful little machine. A Barracuda Spam Firewall can support from 1,000 to 30,000 active users. It can usually be installed in less than five minutes and receives automatic hourly updates for new forms of spam and viruses. It has a 10 layer defense system beyond the use of open source anti spam and anti virus solutions: denial of service and security protection, IP block list, rate control, virus check with archive decompression, proprietary virus check, user specified rules, spam fingerprint check, Intent Analysis, spam rule-based scoring, and Bayesian analysis. Plus it also does both inbound and outbound email filtering with the inclusion of sophisticated outbound email filtering techniques (just in case you've got a spam zombie on board or somebody's got an infected PC).
However, it isn't exactly cheap. Still, when you consider the time, bandwidth, user frustration and potential hardware upgrade costs, the price may look a lot more reasonable. You can check it out at http://www.barracudanetworks.com/
If you are in the market for an anti-spam appliance, the Barracuda Spam Firewall isn't your only choice. The impact of spam on internet businesses - even those who primarily use it for just email - is so great that a simple search for "anti spam appliance" will find you a number of alternatives to examine. Even McAfee is getting into the anti spam hardware game.
I'm hoping that it won't be too long before I can pick up a Bayesian multi-level anti spam, anti virus firewall appliance for my home PC that keeps me safe and cuts my need to delete without deep-sixing the email I want or costing me more than I can afford. I suspect it's on the way.
Anti spam appliance
Spams or unsolicited emails are matter of concerns for all those who use email. Spamming that is essentially a way of online marketing is carried out by professional email marketing agencies. They collect email addresses from various sources and then send bulk emails that in most cases are advertisements. These emails are hardly of any use for the receivers and these emails only clog up the resources of the system. Though software spam protection is the most commonly adopted method to filter spam, at the large enterprises where the volume of data transfer is huge an anti appliance spam is the best effective way to protect the system from spams.
Appliance is a term in the term that means dedicated hardware systems. When a system is maintained to execute one specific task, it is referred as appliance. An anti appliance spam system is therefore a system that prevents the spams. This technique of installing a dedicated hardware and optimizing the operating system with a specific job of preventing spams is a costly solution that also requires regular maintenance and expert supervision. Therefore, anti spam appliances are mainly found at the gateway or in front of the mail server. Often organizations and enterprises with larger networks use this technique to effective protect their system from the spamming. This is an elaborate arrangement but a sure-fire way of negating the spam and sorting the emails that are important.
Though there are so many anti spamming softwares are available in the market these days, the importance of the anti appliance spam protection have never gone down. There are few reasons behind that. The most significant amongst them is the fact that no software can guarantee error free spam protection. Whatever software spam protection you use, there are chances that the spam will surpass the spam filter and even your important mail will be blocked and marked as a spam. As the spammers keep changing the techniques for composing the spams, these problems continue to happen in case of anti spam softwares. But with a dedicated system that is run by an operating system, optimized for spam protection only it is the best effective solution to prevent the spam.
If you want to ensure complete protection against unsolicited emails, you need to regularly monitor the changes in spamming technique and optimize the anti appliance spam system accordingly. It requires continuous monitoring by expert professionals.
Appliance is a term in the term that means dedicated hardware systems. When a system is maintained to execute one specific task, it is referred as appliance. An anti appliance spam system is therefore a system that prevents the spams. This technique of installing a dedicated hardware and optimizing the operating system with a specific job of preventing spams is a costly solution that also requires regular maintenance and expert supervision. Therefore, anti spam appliances are mainly found at the gateway or in front of the mail server. Often organizations and enterprises with larger networks use this technique to effective protect their system from the spamming. This is an elaborate arrangement but a sure-fire way of negating the spam and sorting the emails that are important.
Though there are so many anti spamming softwares are available in the market these days, the importance of the anti appliance spam protection have never gone down. There are few reasons behind that. The most significant amongst them is the fact that no software can guarantee error free spam protection. Whatever software spam protection you use, there are chances that the spam will surpass the spam filter and even your important mail will be blocked and marked as a spam. As the spammers keep changing the techniques for composing the spams, these problems continue to happen in case of anti spam softwares. But with a dedicated system that is run by an operating system, optimized for spam protection only it is the best effective solution to prevent the spam.
If you want to ensure complete protection against unsolicited emails, you need to regularly monitor the changes in spamming technique and optimize the anti appliance spam system accordingly. It requires continuous monitoring by expert professionals.
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