Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) today announced
it is raising the bar for enterprise e-mail security protection by
delivering the industry’s first integrated best-of-breed antispam,
antivirus and content filtering protection in a single software solution
for SMTP gateways — Symantec Mail Security for SMTP 5.0. The combination
of technologies proactively protects against inbound and outbound e-mail
threats at the earliest point of network entry — the Internet e-mail
(SMTP) gateway. Scheduled to be available in May, Symantec Mail Security
for SMTP 5.0 is the final integration of Brightmail and Symantec
technologies into a single, unified solution, and is a key component of
Symantec Enterprise Messaging Management solution portfolio.
“Today’s enterprises rely heavily on e-mail for both internal and external
business communication,” said Brian Burke, Research Manager, IDC’s Security
Products. “To protect against malicious code, phishing attacks, viruses,
spam and other unwanted e-mail, organizations require a comprehensive
solution that provides layers of protection to stop inbound and outbound
e-mail threats from impacting organizations and compromising security.”
E-mail has become a primary communications tool for companies and
government agencies around the world, and with its growth comes the
increased risk of threats. According to IDC, 80 percent of viruses enter
through the e-mail gateway. In addition, the most recent Symantec Internet
Security Threat Report (March 7, 2006) cites that phishing attempts made up
one in every 119 e-mail messages processed, which constituted an average of
7.92 million phishing attempts detected per day in the second half of 2005
– a 39 percent increase over the first half of 2005. The report also
states that Symantec’s antifraud filters — a key technology included in
Symantec Mail Security for SMTP 5.0 — blocked more than 1.5 billion
phishing attempts during this period.
Customers are also looking for consolidation of technologies into a single
solution for e-mail gateways. “Today’s enterprises prefer the convenience
of a strong, integrated e-mail security solution from a single trusted
vendor,” said Rick Caccia, senior director of product management for
Symantec Messaging and Web Security. “Symantec Mail Security for SMTP
offers the industry’s best technologies in threat protection, antispam, and
content filtering to significantly reduce the risk of threats to the
network posed by email-based threats, and to control the flow of
unauthorized or inappropriate content in e-mail both internally and
externally.”
“As a private education institute, we must prevent e-mail threats from
compromising the security of our student and staff information, while
ensuring that the school is able to operate efficiently,” said Nathan
Pilgrim, IT Manager for Brisbane Girls Grammar School, a private
institution based in Brisbane, Australia, with more than 1150 students and
175 staff. “Symantec Mail Security for SMTP helps us protect against
malicious code, phishing attacks, viruses and spam with virtually no false
positives, ensuring the online safety of our students and maximizing the
efficiency of our network.”
Building on the integration of Symantec Mail Security for SMTP, Symantec
Brightmail AntiSpam, and key features from Symantec Mail Security 8200
Series, Symantec Mail Security for SMTP 5.0 provides one of the strongest
barriers against malicious code, phishing attempts, and spyware and adware.
New day-zero virus prevention draws on the breadth and reach of Symantec’s
Probe Network, identifying suspicious attachments that exhibit the
qualities of viruses and mass-mailing worms and rerouting them to the new
Suspect Virus Quarantine, where they are held until definitions are
available. Administrators also have the option of deleting the message,
stripping the attachment, generating a notification or performing other
actions on a per-recipient basis. In addition, the solution mitigates
emerging threats such as phishing and spyware with anti-phishing defenses
using Sender Policy Framework and Sender ID, and the inclusion of spyware
and adware in dispositions for virus policies combats the increasing threat
of such programs using links in e-mail to facilitate installation.
Powerful new content filtering capabilities simplify the enforcement of
corporate usage policies, as well as compliance with legal and regulatory
requirements. Administrators can conduct regular expression and keyword
scanning of more than 200 recognized attachment types, including ZIP files,
executables, processing, spreadsheet and presentation file formats.
Symantec Mail Security for SMTP 5.0 also automatically determines the true
file type of an attachment through direct physical inspection rather than
by extension or MIME type, which prevents malicious senders from attempting
to bypass attachment filters with the renaming of a malicious attachment
extension to a more commonly used extension (for example, changing the file
from .exe to .doc).
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