What is Spam? Spam is the email equivalent of junk mail or nuisance phone calls. As anyone that uses email will agree, spam is not only really frustrating but it can cost money. Spam comes under a number of classifications: Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) which usually advertises a product or service. Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE) which is used for things like lobbying. Chain letters and pyramid schemes and emails relating other fruadulent schemes such as phishing. Messages sent to a recipient who had agreed to receive mail but has subsequently opted-out Any email without an Opt-out facility. Where an Opt-out facility is provided but it is deliberately misleading or difficult to activate. Any email that does not have a valid address in the reply to line.

The cost of spam to a business is difficult to calculate, given the various amounts received and circumstances in which the spam is handled.

However, each business is effected in similiar ways:

• Internet bandwidth. Each spam email received contributes to the internet bandwidth used

• Email server & harddisk space. Each spam email takes up valuable space on an email server.

• Email management & backup: The cost of managing your email servers increases as more and more time is needed to ensure that your mission critical messaging server is backed-up successfully.

Spam can be used to spread computer viruses, trojan horses or other malicious software. The objective may be identity theft, or worse (e.g., advance fee fraud). Some spam attempts to capitalize on human greed whilst other attempts to use the victims' inexperience with computer technology to trick them (e.g., Phishing).

Solutions?

More and more anti-spam solution are hosted 'off-site' or outside of businesses' network. This means that there i s no need to install and any additional hardware or software within your network. Such a solution can provide many advantages. It can bring enterprise anti spam filtering to small and medium sized businesses that may not previously been able to afford such a service. The service works by filtering incoming email for spam, malware and viruses before they reach your network. This approach frees up your internet bandwidth and prevents internet and email borne threats from reaching your network, your servers, desktops, or inboxes.

In addition, many hosted spam solutions also provide the ability to capture or hold incoming email should the primary email server become available through scheduled maintenance or failure.

The Right IT can work with you to select and implement the most appropiate solution that can easily scale as your business requirements change. A well chosen and implemented solution can ensure that not only do the important emails make it saftely to your inbox but that you utimatley save money.