Effective Spam and Malware Filtering
We test McAfee Secure Internet Gateway against Barracuda Networks’ Web Filter and Spam Firewall products.
By Barry Nance
The Internet is like a vast pool of dirty
water. The water, when cleaned up
and filtered, becomes an essential
biological resource. The Internet, when
cleaned up and filtered, becomes an
essential business resource. In both
cases, the cleaning and filtering have
to be extremely thorough. You want
water that’s pure and that flows freely.
The same is true for the Internet.
The dirt that flows through the
Internet—the malware—consists of
unsolicited email (spam), phishing
attempts, viruses, unwanted and
difficult-to-discard programs, and
various kinds of spyware (keystroke
loggers, Trojans, droneware, dialers,
and adware (see Table 3 for a
description of these categories).
Malware steals our credit card data
and passwords, throws up unwanted
and inappropriate advertisements on
our screens, slows our computers to a
crawl, deletes or modifies our files, logs
our keystrokes, broadcasts email to all
the people in our address books, scams
us out of our money, and allows hackers
to remotely control our computers.
Malware, like dirty water, can be harmful
to our health. It also tastes bad.
The supply pipe is the best place
to install a water filtration device.
Similarly, the Internet connection is
the best place to install a malware
filtration device. An Internet gateway
that keeps malware off your network
in the first place is far more effective
and less expensive than the after-the-
fact cleaning of individual server and
desktop computers.
Most Internet filtering products on the
market today are designed to filter
email traffic or web traffic. For thorough
filtration, you typically need to purchase
multiple products. Email security
vendors such as Barracuda Networks
and IronPort (owned by Cisco) now offer
two lines of products—one for email
security and one that blocks malware
coming in through the web.
Can a comprehe