| |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Dear Valued Partners and Friends,
Companies are always looking for ways to reduce costs and maximize efficiency. A recent report from Osterman Research found that smaller companies are spending nearly four times the amount per seat than larger companies on their messaging infrastructures due to the management costs involved.
In parallel, the threatscape is continuously changing, as evidenced by many of the issues detailed in our quarterly trend report highlighted in this newsletter. As a result, companies need solutions like Commtouch's unique cloud-based, proactive messaging and Web security technologies that block threats at the zero hour, keeping them protected with minimal management overhead.
Regards,
Rebecca Steinberg Herson
Vice President Marketing |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| For the second quarter in a row, there were spikes in email-borne viruses not caught by major anti-virus engines, with over 10,000 variants of Mal-Bredo A and Mal Behav-340 flooding the Internet. |
|
 |
Commtouch Labs identified a sharp spike in viruses being circulated via email that were not caught by the major anti-virus engines. Large spikes were recorded every 11 to 13 days and can be attributed to the lag time involved with developing new variants once groups of computers in a botnet are disinfected or cleared by anti-virus products.
Read about these outbreaks plus other messaging and Web threat trends by downloading the Commtouch Q3 Internet Threats Trend Report.
Commtouch partners can receive a co-branded version of this quarterly report for use as a sales tool. To find out more, please contact your Commtouch representative.
Download the Q3 Internet Threats Trend Report 
|
|
|
|
Commtouch Scheduled to Release Third Quarter Results
Commtouch will release its third quarter 2009 results on Wednesday, November 4, 2009. The Company will also be
hosting a conference call to discuss the results, later that same day at 9am EST. On the call, management will
review and discuss the results, and will be available to answer investor questions.
Click here for more information and to find out how to participate in the call.
Comparing the Costs of Commtouch VS Open Source Solutions
Hosting providers often select open source over commercial solutions because they are free. But are they really free? The download is free; but how about managing and supporting the system? Is that also free? And if the software does not do what it is supposed to do, are there costs associated with that?
Open source anti-spam and anti-virus software have operational, capital and productivity costs associated with them; therefore your open source solution may actually be costing you a lot more than you think.
|
|
 |
|
To find out more about assessing the real cost of open source solutions, check out our blog post:
How much is your "free" open source messaging security solution really costing you? or watch our short video clip exploring a hosting operation manager's challenging week with open source messaging security software.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| |
In September, security company Symantec reported a 45% decrease in phishing attacks compared to the previous month. Several security companies rang into the debate with data both supporting and contradicting the claim. You can check out responses and similar studies from SPAMFighter, MarkMonitor and IBM.
Commtouch Labs examined phishing attack data from seven Commtouch Security Alliance members and the results indicate that the way in which data is analyzed directly determines the results. As depicted in the chart below, some companies showed spikes while others showed declines or much smaller increases.
|
|
 |
|
Check out the Commtouch Café blog to read the rest of the Commtouch response to the phishing attack debate.
|
|
|
| |
| |
Amir Lev, Commtouch CTO and president, is now blogging over at ComputerWorld. Each week, he'll explore new and interesting messaging and Web security trends and topics including spammer tricks, spam legality around the world, cultural aspects of both spam and Web filtering, Mac OS malware and 419 advance-fee fraud.
In his first post, Spam Culture, Part 1: China, Amir examined how cultural differences affect spam and how a society approaches it. In China, for example, large, well-known companies can freely send unsolicited emails to a group of people and it is not considered "spam" according to the more commonly accepted definition that spam is unsolicited email. In a follow-up post, he examined the spam culture of Russia.
Check back each week for a new post.
Holiday Donation: The Polls Are Open
Last year, in the spirit of the holiday, Commtouch made a donation to a charitable organization on behalf of our business partners and friends. In keeping with the tradition, we plan to do the same again this year and wanted to ask you, our partners and friends, where you would like us to make the donation. We have narrowed it down to the following charitable causes:
|
|
Please vote here by December 1, 2009. Together, we can make a difference.
|
Events
We'll be attending these events and more in the next few months.
View our web site for a full events list.
Want to meet us? Please speak to your account manager.
|
|
Solution Spotlight:
Commtouch Virus Detection Guidelines
Commtouch Zero Hour Virus Outbreak Protection enables Commtouch partners to provide end customers with an additional layer of security on top of traditional AV solutions. This extra layer of protection shields in real-time from threats and new viruses for which traditional AV vendors have yet to identify and release signatures.
Commtouch's patented Recurrent Pattern Detection™ (RPD™) technology analyzes large volumes of Internet traffic in real-time, over 2 billion messages per day. Through analysis of recurring distribution patterns and structure patterns in the Commtouch Data Center, new viruses and malware outbreaks are identified as soon as they emerge.
The Commtouch Engine returns one of five threat levels per analysis: Virus, High, Medium, Unknown or Non-Virus. When a virus is identified by RPD in the zero hour, the returned classification is "High." In the case where another AV vendor has also identified the virus, the classification returned by the Commtouch Engine is "Virus." These classifications can be used by Commtouch partners to take action to prevent the virus from reaching end-users' mailboxes, even if a signature does not yet exist.
For more information, download the Commtouch Virus Detection Guidelines or contact your technical representative at oemsupport@commtouch.com.
To compare Commtouch's malware catch times to traditional AV engines, visit our Security Center.
Some of our partners recently shared with us real results they have seen by partnering with Commtouch. Check out what Ralf Benzmueller, Head of GData Security Lab, had to say.
Trouble viewing YouTube? Download the whole video in WMV format here.
Want to share your own Commtouch success story? Please send us an email, and we will set it up.
|
Welcome to the Club
We are pleased to welcome 10 new OEM partners who joined Commtouch in the second quarter of 2009, resulting in a total of 131 OEM licensees using Commtouch messaging and/or Web security technologies. Read the full press release here.
A warm welcome to these recently announced partners:
|
• DeepNines
|
• H3C
|
• SmarterTools
|
Connect with Commtouch
| Commtouch is on twitter! Follow us and get instant updates on important Internet security issues, Commtouch company news and more. |
 |
 |
|
| We also have a Fan page on Facebook. Become a fan and be instantly connected to our blog feed, news releases and more. |
 |
|
|
| Receive breaking news, new blog posts, Web and messaging trends straight to your computer with Commtouch RSS feeds. |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
| |
Subscribe to the newsletter.
© Copyright
2009 Commtouch Software Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Recurrent Pattern
Detection, RPD, Zero-Hour and GlobalView are trademarks, and Commtouch is
a registered
trademark, of Commtouch Software Ltd. U.S. Patent No. 6,330,590 is
owned by Commtouch. |
|
|
 |
|
|
