Everyone should have an external e-mail defense system. We’ve worked with thousands of clients regarding e-mail and security issues; most have multiple problems and ongoing requirements for support, and many are accidents waiting to happen.
Companies are exposed. Most have no idea of the quantity, size and business impact of the problems their organization is having relating to e-mail, including:
* Spam
* Fraud
* Loss of intellectual property
* Viruses and worms
* Unwanted and malicious content and attachments
* Attacks that can lead to thousands of bogus e-mail messages or network shutdown
* Network congestion
* Loss of employee productivity
* Employee frustration
* Potential legal liability
* Amount of internal and external resources (time and money) dealing with administration, updating, preventing and supporting their employees
With today’s technology, a managed external e-mail defense system can reduce or eliminate these problems, for $4 or less a person a month.
Regardless of what functions you have in-house, the simple fact is that more protection is better. You should have internal anti-virus software, for instance. But multiple anti-virus engines (yours and the e-mail defense system ones) will improve your protection.
E-mail defense system (EDS) is the most effective solution because it sits outside your network, filtering e-mail in real time, with no delay, prior to it getting to your network. It stops problems before your systems even see them.
EDS also:
* Requires no additional hardware or software from the client
* Is easy to set up, manage and control
* Gets anti-virus updates every five minutes and automatically deploys them
* Has multiple anti-virus engines to do a better job of removing viruses and worms
* Is scalable to support tens of thousands of e-mail users
* Has no latency or security issues
* Monitors the global state of e-mail communication 24/7 to keep your network safe
The EDS can be set up in less than one hour, and the client has administrative control over rules, filters and policies. Administrative reports are available. The user has control over allowing, releasing or denying quarantined messages, as well as over if or how often they are informed of suspect messages.
The amount of spam and the number of threats continue to increase. Recent legislation against spammers has not resulted in any drop in the quantity.
Viruses are more prevalent today than ever — at times, as many as one out of every seven messages has a virus. More than 50 percent of your employees have received pornographic, sexist, racist or other inappropriate e-mail while on the job. Attacks meant to disrupt your business are becoming commonplace. The security of your employees and of your company is increasingly threatened without your team knowing it.
The external managed e-mail defense system is your best protection. Randy Wear is president of Decision Systems Plus Inc., a member of the Technology Assurance Group (TAG). DSP provides computer and telephone technology infrastructure sales and support nationwide to increase clients’ productivity and profitability. Reach him at (847) 544-5818 or [email protected].
