by Bruce LaFlam on May 29, 2009
I remember it was the week after Christmas last year when my son and I were “stuck” while playing his new XBOX360 game. After hours of frustration from not getting to the next level, I went to the family laptop and typed in “game cheats” and found a “helpful” site. Oh my word, I would have never guessed what happened next – popups, automatic downloads, and who knows what else happened. Needless to say, in about two months time we found ourselves getting a new laptop – it was never the same.
While in our world we all know the importance of email security, sometimes we forget the need to be careful and utilize web security tools and practices. McAfee reports that the most dangerous search terms were “free music downloads” (20.7 percent average risk), “game cheats” (16.7 percent), “word unscrambler” (16.1 percent), followed by “lyrics” (14.8 percent). Also included on the list: “screensavers”, “free games”, and “work from home”.
So, in need of copying some old cassette tapes to my hard drive this afternoon (yes, I have some tapes from 15 years ago), I find myself back to the internet searching for free audio recording software. When I saw the search term report it brought back some bad memories and reminded me to be very careful.
Today the Mailprotector Managed Security Suite which focuses on anti spam and virus technologies was tagged in CRN Magazine as one of the “20 Hot Security Products for SMBs”.
“With shrinking budgets and limited staff, SMBs need affordable and easy security solutions to combat a barrage of Trojans, spyware and spam. Here are a few products especially designed to keep the smaller businesses secure.” CRN Magazine
We spend a lot of time thinking about and designing a security system that helps the small business manage their email security and the VAR partners that serve them. See the full story here.
We finally launched! Whenever you’re working on something it always takes longer than you want but the group around here is pretty jacked today. We’ve had the new console in partner and end user beta for about 2 months now with a ton of changes along the way. Our marketing and tech folks took the public site from idea to reality in 8 weeks which was awesome. With the public site launch we finally had to bite the bullet and retire the old console. Sorry, I know some of you don’t like change but I promise, you’re gonna love this one. You’ll still see us cleaning a little house here and there but we just couldn’t wait to get it out. I think my favorite is the new pricing page which calculates any service option including Hosted Exchange.
Enjoy the new sites and for our international customers, please join us here in the U.S. this Memorial Day weekend as we honor our fallen soldiers who died to bring freedom around the world.
Dark Reading published an article recently titled “SMBs Often Hit Hardest By Botnets”. David Setzer, our CEO, was featured in this article after an interview in which he gave his expert insight on the issue.
Spammers use their botnets not only for sending unwanted email to SMBs, but also for gathering new email addresses and bot recruits. “They are after sensitive data, as well,” says David Setzer, CEO of Mailprotector, an email security service provider. They want to recruit a new spam relay/bot, but they also throw in a keylogger to sniff for usernames and passwords, and try to grab as much lucrative sensitive data as possible, he says.
“It’s kind of a Swiss Army knife of malware…[they figure] they might as well get all the goodies they can out of [the SMB],” Setzer adds.
While Setzer says he can’t pinpoint any specific botnets that focus on hitting SMBs, more SMBs tend to get hit because they don’t have the horsepower to handle the threats. A DSL line or DS3 connection can be no match for a botnet spamming and waging a directory attack, he says.
Click to continue reading…
ChannelPro online recently released an interesting story on building your business in a tough economy. The idea that hit me the most is the concept of simplifying and a focusing on your strengths. Here’s a quote from the author Stuart Crawford:
Complicated products and services are being replaced by solutions that are simple to use and require minimal training and investment, plus maintain or even improve productivity.
You can read the full story here
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We are making the final preparations to release a completely redesigned client console to our entire customer base that is packed with many new features. The screenshot below will give you a quick preview of what is coming…
New Email Security Console Preview
Here are some of the things you’ll love about the new console:
- A Simplified Interface
- Enhanced Reporting
- Content Filtering Management
- Outbound Filtering Controls
- Compliance Footer Settings
- Certified Footer Option
- Spam Settings and more
This will be going live soon so if you are a current Mailprotector customer, be sure to check it out and give us your feedback. If you aren’t yet a Mailprotector customer, click here to see why you should be.
It never fails with any natural disaster or well publicized crisis that someone takes it as an opportunity to profit off of others fears and weakness. The recent swine flu scare is no different. We’ve seen a huge uptick in ’swine flu’ spam and scams so remember to keep your guard up. Most of the messages are hawking all kinds of swine flu prevention from masks, to non-existent vaccines, even herbal cures. Some of the subject lines are “Swine flu medicine available now”; “Hurry up, swine flu drugs almost sold out”; “Vaccine protecting against swine flu”; “Herbal cure for swine flu.”
Needless to say there is no cure or vaccine for swine flu so remember to wash your hands regularly, monitor contact with those who appear ill and seek the advice of medical professionals for any questions or assistance. And, if any of these messages do make it past your email security solution, just DELETE.
