Fighting malware and spam

Combined hardware/software solutions to malware and spam control

Steve Posniak Office of Information Technology, US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

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This paper will focus primarily on the experiences of a group of 21 US Federal Government agencies in deploying such solutions to control both spam and all types of malware (including spyware, Trojans, etc.)

As spam and spyware have increased as a threat to the network infrastructures of organizations, vendors have increasingly begun to offer ‘appliance’- based solutions involving combined, dedicated hardware and software. These include products such as IronPort, Tumbleweed's Mailgate Edge, and Symantec Client Security, to list some of those most frequently referenced. The paper will summarize (on a not-for-attribution basis unless specifically authorized) the experiences of the 21 Federal agencies in deployment of such combined solutions. If possible, the paper will also include interview data from selected private sector organizations. While relating all pertinent input provided by the organizations, the interview questions will include issues such as those raised by Matthew Wagner in his January 2004 Virus Bulletin article on the purported benefits of ‘the hardware approach over software - oriented scanners’.

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