Re: Recommendations on Email Filtering System

["Childs, Aaron" <aaron () WSC MA EDU>]

Hi Tony,

  We are in the process of replacing our spam filter as well.  We are
currently beta-testing SpamAssassin combined with grey-listing.  So far
the test only includes individuals within our department and few select
individuals outside of our department who typically receive a large
amount of spam.  We anticipate rolling this out to the rest of our
campus during Winter break.

  Surprisingly SpamAssassin & greylisting is catching almost all spam
(Efficiency 99.41% False Positive 0.15% False Negative 0.43%, as
reported through the Maia web interface), unlike our anti-spam appliance
which is only catching 50% at best.  It doesn't report the name of the
virus but it does give the count in the quarantine.

  This solution is relatively cheap to implement, all you need is a
beefy server (lots of memory, fast drives, fast processor, etc) and the
software is free.  We spent about $10k on the server and this will
eventually handle roughly 5500 users.

 

Have a good day,

  Aaron

-------------
Aaron Childs
Assistant Director, Networking
Westfield State College
http://www.wsc.ma.edu/it/

 

"I would rather write 10,000 notes than one letter of the alphabet."  
                -- Beethoven

 

From: Anthony "Tony" Quigg [mailto:quiggt () TAMUG EDU] 
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 9:50 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: [SECURITY] Recommendations on Email Filtering System

 

We are currently looking to replace our email spam/virus filter and
would like to hear what systems other people are using. After initial
investigation the price range for appliances and managed services varies
greatly so it is hard to determine what you are getting for your money.
We have around 500 desktops on campus.

 

One of the important factors (apart from stopping the spam and viruses)
is to be able to get decent reporting information such as the number and
name of quarantined viruses on a monthly basis. I have found that most
manufacturers do not have a lot of information about what reports are
available. 

 

Feel free to email me directly if you don't want to inundate the list.

 

Any recommendations, good or bad experiences greatly appreciated.

 

Regards,

Tony Quigg
Computer Systems Manager
Texas A&M University at Galveston
200 Seawolf Parkway
Galveston, Texas 77553
(409) 740-4961