Barracuda Spam Firewall Outbound Rate Control System Stops Spam Before It Is Sent

Barracuda Networks, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise-class spam firewall solutions, today announced enhancements to the Barracuda Spam Firewall Outbound Mode Rate Control System, which prevents spammers and phishers from using protected networks to send spam and viruses. One of ten layers of defence included in the Barracuda Spam Firewall Outbound Mode, the Rate Control System protects organizations and ISPs from the inconvenience, tarnished reputation, and potential financial losses incurred when spammers use an organizations network to send spam and viruses.

"Barracuda Networks outbound Rate Control System will help many ISP and organizational users to deal with the problem of zombies and other PCs that have been hijacked by spammers," said Michael Osterman, president of Osterman Research, Inc. "By allowing administrators to control the flow of outbound mail according to predetermined thresholds, this feature will allow administrators to more finely control email traffic through their networks and to more easily spot compromised PCs."

In the last year a growing number of spam operations have employed unsuspecting open relays to send spam and viruses. Spammers take over PCs, or zombie machines, on the ISP or organizations network and use it to send huge amounts of email from the compromised email server in a short time period. This practice often goes unnoticed by the organizations IT staff until their IP addresses are placed on an RBL (Real-time Blackhole List) which can significantly damage the organizations reputation.

It is becoming increasingly important to stop spam at the source, and we continue to find that in many cases the source is an unsuspecting, legitimate email user whose PC has been compromised by spammers, said Dean Drako, president and CEO of Barracuda Networks. This is particularly devastating to ISPs whose business structure is based on providing efficient email service to customers. If its network is used to send spam, the entire network is jeopardized and legitimate email is subsequently blocked rendering the ISPs service ineffective.

Organizations need an effective means to thwart these attacks from occurring at the onset, he continued. With the Barracuda Spam Firewall Outbound Mode Rate Control System, ISPs and other organizations regain control over the amount of email that is sent in a given time period.

The Barracuda Spam Firewall Outbound Modes easy-to-use Rate Control System protects ISPs and organizations from spammers using several sophisticated steps. Because spammers typically send large amounts of email in a short amount of time, the Rate Control System monitors the number of emails sent in a fixed time period and blocks email accounts that exceed the predetermined threshold.

We are pleased that our customers often refer to the Barracuda Spam Firewall Outbound Mode Rate Control System as their reputation filter, said Drako adding that the defense layer has received praise from industry insiders such as the watchdog group Spamhaus. We are committed to providing our customers with the power to stop spam from getting in or out of their networks. The Rate Control System is just one of many powerful technologies used in the Barracuda Spam Firewall, but it is one that we believe will make great strides in helping to curb the amount of spam transmitted.