Dear Valued Partner or Friend,
The first quarter of 2011 was very active in the
realm of spam, malware and Web threats. We saw a steady
increase in spam in the early months of the
year, then in late March, the Rustock botnet was
taken down, which resulted in a 30% drop in
global spam. Continuing on the roller coaster,
shortly thereafter there was a significant
increase in email-borne malware of 400% as
cybercriminals appeared to be trying to rebuild
botnet capacity. Then just this week, a new Adobe
Flash vulnerability was announced, the second
within a month. You can find extensive coverage
of these events in the
Commtouch blog
as well as in
April’s Quarterly Threat
Trend Report.
This quarter’s outbreaks demonstrate how threats
are increasingly distributed across multiple
vectors, and the need for comprehensive defense
is clear. With this in mind, Commtouch recently
announced its “triple play” security offering:
the industry's first
unified engine combining three security
technologies - messaging, antivirus
and Web security. You can learn how one of our
partners benefits from these multifaceted
Commtouch security solutions in a newly released
case study.
Regards,
Rebecca Steinberg Herson
Vice President
Marketing
Command Antivirus only AV to detect
latest Flash vulnerability in Zero Day |
On April 11 Adobe released a security bulletin
informing of a critical vulnerability in Adobe
Flash.
The vulnerability (CVE-2011-0611), as reported
by Adobe, could cause a crash and
potentially allow an attacker to take control of
the affected system. Adobe indicated that this vulnerability is being
exploited in the wild in targeted attacks via a
Flash (.swf) file embedded in a Microsoft Word
(.doc) file in email attachments.
Based on the
analysis of VirusTotal,
a service that analyses suspicious files and
checks them against 42 major antivirus products,
Commtouch Command
Antivirus was the only major AV
solution correctly detecting the
malicious file in the critical early days of the
attacks.
Commtouch
Command Antivirus also continues to rank
highly in AVTest’s anti-malware
test results. In February's test,
Commtouch took second place (and the top engine) out of 26 AV
solutions tested, with a detection rate of
99.85%.
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Commtouch Labs monitored these and other major
outbreaks throughout the quarter:
How PDF Files Hide Malware
Commtouch detected this outbreak in February that exploits a security
flaw in PDF readers. The attack takes
advantage of the fact that many users do not perform updates for these
applications, which often include security patches to block such
threats. A harmless looking email, similar to one that might come from an
internal office scanner, together with out-of-date software, is all it
takes for users to become the victim of a cleverly engineered blended
malware attack.
Read more
Rustock Takedown Results in increased spam
activity
Shortly after the takedown of the Rustock Botnet, at which point spam
levels dropped around 30%, Commtouch Labs
started to track a massive increase in
email-borne malware. At times the volume was so high that it
accounted for one third of all email traffic. A number of
theories were offered, including that botnet
capacity is being rebuilt.
Read more
Other outbreaks in Q1 included:
Have some great bloggable ideas about messaging
and Web security? Please
send us an email, and if it's a fit,
we will be happy to have you post on the
Commtouch blog. We also welcome comments and
feedback on the blog posts!
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The first three months of 2011 were very
busy, with wide fluctuations in spam and a range
of cybercriminals' attempts to distribute malware. Check out the
latest edition of the
Commtouch Quarterly Trend
Report to get the complete details.
Selected outbreaks covered in the
report:
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Mass mailings of “parcel tracking
information” purporting to come from
UPS and DHL accounted for 30% of all
emails sent during the peak of the
outbreak. |
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Facebook chat messages from
compromised user accounts led to
phony Facebook applications and
ultimately virus files. |
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The “Kama Sutra” virus tempted
recipients with an explicit
PowerPoint presentation. |
The report also tracks trends like spam/phishing levels and zombie activity.
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Commtouch partners can
also receive a co-branded version of the quarterly
report or a PowerPoint version
to help create impressive
presentations with a minimum of effort. The
slides are available on the new Partner
Marketing Portal, which provides a quick and
easy way to view and access the variety
of marketing tools and materials that
Commtouch provides for its partners.
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You may have heard that the last of the
IPv4 addresses have been handed out. And that means you'll
be hearing a lot more about IPv6, the new
Internet addressing scheme.
In addition to adding billions more IP
addresses, IPv6 will have many implications related to Internet security.
Security in an IPv6 Internet
is a short document that highlights a few of
these issues. In the coming months,
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Commtouch will also be providing much more
information for you on what IPv6 is and
its implications for you and your
customers. |
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Company |
MXSweep |
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Type of company: |
Global provider of SaaS
Internet Security &
Compliance services |
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Customers: |
Over 3,500
SME, corporate and public
sector. |
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Problem: |
MXSweep was
looking for additional
Internet security services
it could offer its customers
to address changing Internet
threats, while lowering
operational costs and
removing unnecessary
overhead. |
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Learn how
MXSweep was able to significantly
reduce blacklisting, save money, improve
customer satisfaction and increase efficiency
with outbound spam protection.
What MXSweep has to say:
“When we looked to expand our
messaging and malware security
offering, it was a no brainer to
expand with Commtouch’s consolidated
messaging security suite.
Commtouch’s solution enables us to
offer our customers enhanced
protection against today’s growing
threats, while we realize reduced
costs and the service & support only
a single-vendor can offer.”
Jeff Doyle, Director of Operations
MXSweep |
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If you're interested in sharing in a case study
on how Commtouch security solutions have helped
you,
please
contact us.
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First Ever Unified Engine
for Internet Security
This past February, at the RSA Conference,
Commtouch
announced the
industry's first
unified security engine
combining three Internet security technologies -
Messaging, Antivirus and Web Security (a.k.a.
the Triple Play Internet security
suite).
The new unified
engine offers advantages for security and
networking vendors as well as service providers.
On the technical side:
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Enhances performance by reducing
resource utilization compared to the larger
footprint required by separate components |
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Significantly reduces integration
time of all three services since there is a
unified interface |
It also simplifies business
operations:
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One vendor to manage |
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One invoice to process |
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One address for support |
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One company to interface with for training,
roadmap discussions, or any type of technical or
operational updates |
Read our announcement to learn more about
Commtouch's
unified security engine.
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You can meet Commtouch at the following events
in the coming months:
Please
contact us if
you'd like to schedule a meeting at one of these
events.
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Commtouch Scheduled to Release First Quarter
Results
Commtouch will be releasing
its first quarter 2011 results on Wednesday, May
4, 2011. Commtouch management will be
hosting a conference call, to review and discuss
the results, on the same day at 10am Eastern /
7am Pacific / 3pm UK / 5 pm Israel time.
It is possible to
participate in the conference call via telephone
or via webcast using a link found on the
Commtouch homepage
(on the day of the conference call).
A new Zack’s analyst report is available, rating
Commtouch as “outperform.”
Read the report
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We are pleased to welcome
these recently announced
partners:
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In this Issue
New Flash Vulnerability
Recent Outbreaks
April Trend Report
IPv6 is Coming
Case Study
Product Spotlight
Upcoming Events
Investor's Corner
Welcome to the Club
Recent News
April 12, 2011
Email-borne Malware Jumps 400% After Rustock Takedown, says Commtouch Report
April 11, 2011
Commtouch Expands Presence in Service Provider Market with Major Wins
March 15, 2011
Hostway Leverages Commtouch Outbound Spam Protection Solution to Prevent Blacklisting and Recover Compromised Accounts
February 23,
2011
Italy’s Gruppo Se.Co.Ges Adds Commtouch Messaging and Web Security to its Compliance Solution
February 14, 2011
Commtouch Introduces Industry’s First Unified Engine Combining Three Internet Security Technologies
February 9, 2011
Commtouch Reports 34% Fourth Quarter Revenue Increase and Full Year 2010 Financial Results
January 18, 2011
Commtouch Schedules Release of Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2010 Results for Wednesday, February 9, 2011
January 12, 2011
Spam Increases 45% this Week after Significant Decrease in Q4 2010, says Commtouch Report
January 11, 2011
Commtouch Leverages Authentium Command Acquisition: Signs First Antivirus Deals and Improves Benchmark Ranking
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