Press Releases
Mailshell's Anti-Spam Engine Bolsters
Customers' Defenses Against SoBig Virus
Updates to Core Engine Rolled Out Across Anti-Spam
Product Line
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - August 29, 2003 -
Mailshell Inc., creator of the easiest and most integrated
anti-spam engine, will now identify spam spreading the
SoBig.F virus. The design and rollout of Mailshell Rule
#1460 provides OEM customers, enterprises and consumers
running Mailshell-powered anti-spam products with greater
protection against the virus. One Mailshell customer,
planning to initially deploy Mailshell's enterprise
software in September, reports that the virus increased
their recent network email traffic by more than 80 percent.
The SoBig virus, which first appeared
in January of this year, loads software on users’ computers
that can subsequently be used to remotely launch massive
spam attacks. Several versions of the virus have appeared
over the course of the year, infecting tens of thousands
of computers. The virus is spread primarily via spam,
thereby creating a major overlap between users’ expectations
of anti-spam and anti-virus software products. Industry
estimates indicate that between five and ten percent
of all email sent during the most recent attack contained
the virus.
Customers will automatically receive the
new rule within their usual, scheduled rules udpates.
Mailshell customers report that the virus has, in many
instances, breached their existing anti-virus protection.
While Mailshell's SpamLabs focuses exclusively on spam
and not viruses, SoBig's spread can be greatly diminished
via advanced, dynamically updated spam filtering.
"Mailshell's core engine is designed to
identify the newest spam mutations and rapidly deploy
updates across all our products," said Tonny Yu, president
of Mailshell. "Since SoBig is spread through spam, and
may likely be a vehicle for future spam attacks, it's
natural for us to bolster our customers' existing anti-virus
protection with flexible anti-spam rules. As the virus'
related spam mutates, our system will adapt to combat
it."
Mailshell's Rule #1460 looks for emails
containing a combination of elements including, SoBig.F's
most common subject lines, the most common body text
lines and other more esoteric spam attributes. Triggering
Rule #1460 yields a dramatic increase in the SpamScore,
Mailshell's proprietary system to identify the probability
that a message is spam.
About Mailshell
Mailshell develops the award-winning SpamCatcher Engine,
the easiest and most integrated solution to spam. The
company's products include anti-spam software developers'
tools and a suite of enterprise and personal anti-spam
products. Mailshell's engine is the only anti-spam solution
developed explicitly to integrate spam-blocking technology
with common IT components, including security appliances,
mail servers, anti-virus applications and many others.
Mailshell's software recently earned an "Editor's Choice"
award in PC Magazine's review of spam filters, and has
been dubbed "priceless" by Forbes magazine, "excellent"
by the Associated Press and "easy to use" by CNET.
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Contact:
Stefan Pollack, The Pollack PR Marketing Group,
(310) 556-4443, spollack@ppmgcorp.com
