Barracuda Networks last week released a new version of its anti-spam appliance that prevents unwanted e-mail and viruses from being sent out of a corporate network while keeping sensitive data, trade secrets and other company information inside the organization.

The Barracuda Spam Firewall Outbound Edition scans an organization's outbound e-mail to ensure senders aren't spreading viruses or blasting spam, says CEO Dean Drako. The new appliance uses many of the same techniques found in Barracuda's Spam Firewall for incoming mail, but is not integrated with that product to maintain the integrity of outgoing mail in case incoming mail experiences a problem, and vice versa. "Any IT guy who knows what he's doing will separate the inbound [stream of e-mail] from the outbound," Drako says.

Designed for both corporate and ISP use, the appliance sits at the edge of the network and scours outgoing mail for viruses using a number of techniques including dual-layer virus blocking and attachment blocking based on file types, Drako says.

To prevent spam from emanating from a corporate network, the new spam firewall scans outgoing mail for keywords that are often contained in spam messages and utilizes rate controls to alert the IT staff when an e-mail address attempts to send out a large quantity of messages. This is usually a sign that a PC has been taken over by malware and turned into a spam server. The firewall alerts the IT department before the bulk e-mail is sent out so the messages can be blocked, Drako says.

CC Communications, a telecom provider in Fallon, Nev., uses the Barracuda Spam Firewall Outbound Edition to prevent its Internet service users from sending viruses and spam to each other and out onto the Internet, says network administrator Gene Ponce.

"We wanted to hopefully prevent other domains and companies from blacklisting our domains and from preventing delivery of e-mail from our customers to theirs due to spam from our domains," Ponce says. The company, which won't specify how many Internet service users it has other than to say "thousands," plans to add another Barracuda Spam Firewall Outbound Edition to its corporate network to monitor for spam and viruses, and to help implement company e-mail policies.