Research Center
Messaging Security
Security vs Privacy: Best Practices for Spam and Virus Protection for Telecommunications Carriers and Service Providers
Created by the Experton Group for Cloudmark
Abstract
Fighting against spam and malicious code poses a dilemma to telcos and ISPs: the subscriber's desire for strong email security could potentially conflict with regulations related to user and data privacy. When evaluating a content filter, service providers must ensure that it not only is effective against spam, phishing and viruses, but also that the process by which it filters respects the anonymity and privacy of subscribers and complies with regulations on data privacy and protection. In this paper, the Experton Group explains the different regulatory and legal issues for service providers to consider, analyzes a variety of technological approaches to fighting spam in light of both effectiveness and regulatory compliance, and offers recommendations for achieving a right balance of security and privacy.
The Economic Impact of Message Filtering Accuracy
Abstract
Service providers often think that their current message filtering solution is "good enough." In reality, even a small improvement in filtering accuracy can make a big difference for service providers and subscribers.
90-96% of all service provider email traffic is abusive, according to measurements from Cloudmark's Global Threat Network, which processes over 3 billion message per day. We will discuss how every percentage point increase in messaging filtering accuracy actually does have a significant impact on infrastructure and operational costs as well as the subscriber experience.
The Economy of Phishing
Abstract
In order to develop effective strategies and solutions to combat the phishing problem, businesses need to understand the infrastructure in which phishing economies thrive. Cloudmark has conducted extensive research to uncover phishing network. The result is a sociological and economic analysis of phishers based on data collected from 3. 9 million phishing emails, 220,000 messages from 13,000 chat rooms, and 48,000 users that were spread across six chat networks and 4,400 compromised hosts used in botnets. This paper presents these research results offering deep insight into the behavior of this criminal subculture.
Kama Sutra (CME-24) Worm Outbreak Analysis
Abstract
The Kama Sutra virus garnered substantial media attention due to its name, malicious intent, encoded destruction date, and the expected content of its attachments. However, the spread of this virus was extremely low, infecting only about 15,000 machines inside the U.S. The Cloudmark network obtained an accurate view of the entire virus outbreak and Cloudmark was able to protect users at the very initial stages.