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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