Cloudmark Launches Comprehensive "Zombie" Prevention Strategy for Service Providers
Leverages End-to-End Sender Reputation Intelligence for Zombie Identification
San Francisco, October 17, 2006 - With billions of spam, virus and phishing messages being sent daily from hijacked PCs, messaging security leader Cloudmark, Inc. has launched an extensive effort to help service providers detect, remediate and prevent attacks from computer "zombies." Intelligence and analytics gathered from the global network of service providers protected by Cloudmark automatically identifies zombie activities so providers can quarantine infected PCs and direct users to remediation service partners.
"ISPs need to address the email security threats caused by zombies and botnets," says Richi Jennings, lead analyst for the email security practice at Ferris Research. "However, it's important to address these threats in ways that minimize inconvenience to subscribers — no ISP wants to alienate their customers. Proactive content filtering and remediation preserves customer relations and email reliability. The insights that Cloudmark can provide into outbound content and unusual spikes in volume are obviously pivotal to the process."
With an average of 100 billion emails sent daily and 92% estimated to be some form of spam, Cloudmark's data shows that over 90% of spam and phishing messages now originate from hijacked computers.
"Zombie activities continue to escalate as spammers look for new ways to dodge IP address-based blacklists and other sender-based detection systems," says Vipul Ved Prakash, Cloudmark founder and Chief Scientist. "The issue is gaining in complexity as many zombies now work in 'trickle mode,' sending only a few messages per hour, making the activities even harder to discover. The reputations of both ISPs and their subscribers are compromised as spam is traced back to the provider's network, and often results in temporary blacklisting of service provider networks."
Launching an Intelligent Defense
With its Authority solution deployed on outbound mail servers, Cloudmark is able to identify zombies sending spam through the service provider's mail infrastructure. Analytics gathered from Cloudmark Authority deployed locally within a service provider's network, combined with sender reputation data gathered from Cloudmark's global service provider customer network, combine to effectively identify hijacked machines, tracking sender reputations by IP address. This extensive intelligence helps pinpoint specific PCs being hijacked and enables providers' to notify and direct customers to remediation services.
Going forward, Cloudmark will launch services that provide programmatic access to the sender reputation data gathered from monitoring and analyzing zombie activities globally.
About Cloudmark
Cloudmark builds messaging security software that protects communications service provider networks and their subscribers against the widest range of messaging threats. Only Cloudmark Security Platform™ delivers instant security and control across diverse messaging environments, enabling communications service providers to create a safe user experience, protect revenue and safeguard their brand, while streamlining infrastructure and reducing operational costs. Cloudmark's patented solutions protect more than 120 tier-one customers worldwide, including AT&T, Verizon, Swisscom, Comcast, Cox and NTT.