Problem:
Internet and email use is essential to business operation today. Businesses are becoming more and more dependent on email as instant and inexpensive form of communication. A study conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 57 million Americans can be classified as business email users. However, this low cost form of mass communication has also attracted unscrupulous people who send out mass mailings full of advertisements and inappropriate content.
This unsolicited commercial email, more commonly know as spam, is becoming a problem that may soon rival computer viruses in cost and inconvenience. A recent paper titled "E-Mail in 2003: The Risk Level Rises" from market researchers at Gartner, for example, concludes that "by 2004, unless an enterprise takes defensive action, more than 50 percent of its message traffic will be spam."

Today, roughly 40 percent of all email traffic is spam, up from only 8 percent in 2001. According to Ferris Research Inc., a San Francisco consulting group, spam will cost U.S. organizations more than $10 billion this year.

Another issue is of concern is the availability and reliability of internal email servers. With dependence on email rising as a major tool in commerce, availability of these systems must be very high. However, email servers are susceptible to viruses and require a great deal of maintenance. In addition, many small businesses experience outages on their Internet connectivity which can cause them to lose email messages intended for them. These messages may contain orders, requests for information, or communications important to the customer relationship. The expense involved in making these systems redundant and failsafe is often very high and not practical for the smaller business operator.

Spammers and unreliable Internet connections are just part of the problem though; email is an asset that must be protected vigilantly. Spam purveyors are extremely sophisticated and are constantly finding new ways to get around blocking software. They can change their addresses on the fly and even take over the computers of unsuspecting users of the Internet to use them as launching points for spam. Viruses also pose a serious threat to email systems and users. Email-borne viruses cost business billions or dollars worldwide. Messages that are allowed to slip through can cripple an entire corporate network in seconds.

Many companies do not have the resources to constantly monitor and maintain these systems effectively. With the increase in corporate dependence on email and the increased threat to these systems, action needs to be taken to protect and secure these valuable resources.

Solution:
With the SysCare® MailGuard™ service, DELTEC Information Solutions continues to provide small to medium businesses with the technology advantages enjoyed by large corporate entities. The SysCare® MailGuard™ service provides an email gateway to automatically receive all inbound email ahead of the client server. The client server can then be isolated from the Internet email traffic and protected from direct attacks from spammers and hackers. In addition, the inbound email is received and cached in case of any downtime of the client email platform.

The SysCare® MailGuard™ service also rejects email that contains viruses by using an engine that is different than most corporate networks and is checked for updates hourly. With a combination of the client’s own virus protection software, and the SysCare® MailGuard™ service, virus protection is doubled, and load in internal servers is reduced. Spam is handled by a combination of real-time blacklist services and a continually updating Bayesian filtering system. The engine eliminates email that is sent from a known spam source and thereby eliminates approximately 50% of the unwanted email traffic right off the top. The remainder of spam traffic is handled by a multi-level tagging technique.

Non-rejected mail is received and processed by a multi-level filtering system that automatically recognizes spam messages. The filtering system automatically learns new techniques and identifies spam messages not by sender, but by numerous “clues” that indicate the probability of an unwanted message. If there is a higher probability that the message is spam, it is then encapsulated into another message, marked as either “Probably Spam” or “Definitely Spam” , and then forwarded to the intended recipient. Encapsulation protects the recipient from the possibility of automatically previewing and opening harmful or distasteful content. Once the message arrives at the intended recipient’s site, it is a simple matter to set up standard rules to delete or “park” these messages for later deletion. SysCare® MailGuard™ takes a conservative approach on deleting messages or tagging them as spam. If a message arrives that has a possibility of being spam because of content, but cannot be definitely categorized as spam, it is forwarded on with the tag of“Possibly Spam” and the content is left alone. These messages are usually left in the recipients’ inbox for individual attention. This technique eliminates the danger of accidentally deleting a good message.

The SysCare® MailGuard system uses multiple techniques to protect clients from unwanted email, viruses, and loss of email messages due to costly downtime. The service can be activated in minutes and requires no software at the customer sire. It can work with all major email platforms. SysCare® MailGuard™ is an exclusive service of DELTEC Information Solutions. DELTEC Information Solutions has been a provider of information technology management and support services for small to mid-sized businesses in the Midwest since 1990.