Spam and Spyware are just as real a threat to a network as viruses.
In fact, the distinction between the three has become blurred with
viruses that carry spam payloads and anti-spyware software being
bundled with antivirus packages. In all cases, these threats need
to be minimized through proactive measures.
Spam is a threat to more than just an employees productivity. Recent research has shown that
more than 90% of all email on the Internet today is spam and that it is costing companies over
$20 billion annually. This is resulting in clogged bandwidth, increased storage needs for servers,
and faster networks.
There are many companies on the market that offer anti-spam solutions in the form of software and hardware.
You can install products on your users workstations, on your server, and install dedicated spam
appliances. Most companies are doing a combination of these three simultaneously.
No one solution is 100% effective.
We have found one product to be particularly helpful - Barracuda Network's Spam Firewall.
This device runs on a Linux platform and cleans spam as well as viruses. The image below is an example
of the visual web-based reporting that comes with this device.
You can see the huge number of emails that it is blocking right away.
Once your computer has been infected by Spyware, there are many great products that you can use
to clean your computer. Two of these products seem to work better than the rest - Spybot and Adaware.
Using just these two products you can usually take care of the majority of the Spyware on your computer.
But beware of the companies on the market that infect your computer so that they can sell
you their software to remove it.
