Cloudmark upgrade protects Exchange users

Spam filter maker Cloudmark this week is expected to announce an upgrade to its e-mail security software that includes new reporting capabilities.

The Cloudmark Server Edition 2.0 for Exchange scans e-mail before it is disseminated to mobile e-mail devices, including BlackBerries, Treos and Good devices, so that unwanted messages are not forwarded to users accessing their e-mail via these devices, says Jacinta Tobin, vice president of business development with Cloudmark.

The new version also lets Cloudmark Server Edition users participate in the Cloudmark Collaborative Security Network, a group of e-mail users who regularly report spam, phishing attacks, viruses and other threats. Based on reports from these users, as well as its own analysis and classification process, Cloudmark updates the spam-blocking rules found in its server software on a regular basis, enabling the software to block a spam blast within as little as three minutes after origination, Tobin says.

This network, which officials say includes more than 100 million mailboxes and processes billions of messages everyday, distinguishes Cloudmark’s offering in the crowded anti-spam marketplace, says Richi Jennings, lead analyst with Ferris Research’s e-mail security practice.While many anti-spam vendors, including Postini, Proofpoint and Symantec’s Brightmail have networks of e-mailboxes that they analyze for spam patterns, Cloudmark is the only one with users who actively report spam into the network, he says.

“If an organization can only have one filter in one place, it should be done at the gateway, because there’s so much more information available there,” such as the reputation of the sending IP address, Jennings says. “But if you simply filter as the message is arriving, you may not have the full story about what the latest spam messages look like.” Because of its network, Cloudmark is able to very quickly develop signatures of what new spam messages look like and push that information out to its users, he says.

Cloudmark Server Edition 2.0 is priced from $399 a year for as many as 10 users, to $40,000 a year for as many as 5,000 users.

Additionally, Cloudmark last week announced a new service called Storage Scan, designed for ISPs to help them clean spam messages out of their stored e-mail. ISPs are wasting as much as 25% of their storage capacity by keeping messages that are clearly spam – but went undetected by the spam filters the ISPs are using – for their customers, Tobin says.

Pricing for Storage Scan depends on the number of mailboxes and amount of mail stored.