Case Study 2 - NRC Broadcasting, Inc.
"We were receiving close to 12 million spam emails a month. Our staff were wasting more than 3,000 hours a year simply processing junk mail"
Mike Pluta, Vice President of Engineering and Operations at NRC
RADIO OPERATOR DEPLOYS SPAMTITAN TO PROTECT ITS MAIL SERVERS FROM AN EXPONENTIALLY INCREASING VOLUME OF SPAM
NRC Broadcasting is a Colorado-based company committed to providing high quality, locally originated programming via its 2 radio stations in Denver, 105.5 JACKFM and 102.3 KCUV-FM, and 13 stations in the mountain resort towns of Breckenridge, Vail, Glenwood Springs, Aspen, Steamboat Springs and Hayden.
NRC has 130 staff in 7 different offices and found that it was becoming increasingly dependant on email as a method of communication. Unfortunately, NRC also found that the value of its electronic communications were being severely eroded by a deluge of spam, phishing emails and other unwanted messages. According to Mike Pluta, Vice President of Engineering and Operations at NRC, "Each of our staff was receiving more than 200 emails per day on average - and about 90% of those emails were spam."
Dealing with the unwanted emails was consuming a considerable amount of staff time. "We were receiving close to 12 million spam emails a month", said Pluta, "Even if it only took a second to review and delete each spam - and that's a very conservative estimate - it would mean that our staff were wasting more than 3,000 hours a year simply processing junk mail. And top of that there was time being wasted on calls to the IT department plus a drain on network resources."
NRC were also concerned about protecting their employees. "NRC is a responsible employer and we take our duty of care towards our employees very seriously. The spam emails were often either offensive or phishing for personal information and we absolutely had to do some - thin to protect staff from that," noted Pluta.
After evaluating a number of different options, the NRC eventually decided on SpamTitan ISO. "For us, the deciding factor was the ease with which SpamTitan could be deployed and man - aged," said Pluta. "As a relatively small company with limited in-house resources, we really needed a set-and-forget type product that wouldn't place too much of a drain on our IT department's time. SpamTitan seemed to fit the bill."
COMPREHENSIVE PROTECTION, MINIMAL ADMINISTRATION
SpamTitan provides enterprise-class functionality at a price that puts it within easy reach of the smaller business. In addition to its state-of-the art anti-span engine, SpamTitan also features industry - leading anti-virus engines from ClamAV and Kaspersky Lab to ensure complete and up-to-the-minute protection from spam, viruses, phishing scams and other email-borne threats. The solution's end-user spam management controls enable end-users to control their own spam settings, without having to resort to the IT department.
According to Pluta, "SpamTitan has performed perfectly since day one. It took about 30 minutes to install and was immediately able to block almost 100% of the spam that we had been receiving. The end-user controls are great and really help cut the helpdesk's workload. Staff can control their own whitelists and blacklists and can easily access any legitimate emails which have been incorrectly identified as spam and quarantined."
With some solutions, misidentification of email can be a real problem. Should an email being incorrectly deleted, sales and opportunities can be lost and reputations and relations can be damaged. SpamTitan has been designed to minimize the possibility of messages being misidentified. "We've been running SpamTitan for 12 months. In that time it's blocked roughly 12 million junk emails, but I've received less than 5 calls from staff about false-positives," said Pluta.
Pluta is delighted with SpamTitan's effectiveness. "SpamTitan has drastically cut our spam, drastically reduced the load on our mail server and provided us with rock-solid protection against both existing and emerging threats. You can't ask for more than that."
SPAMTITAN BENEFITS
Enterprise-class security. SpamTitan uses a range of technologies, including OCR, to ensure that 99% of spam is canned before it reaches the mail server. Industry-leading anti-virus engines from ClamAV and Kaspersky Lab ensure complete protection from viruses and other email-borne threats.
Rapid installation and easy management. SpamTitan can be installed and configured in under 30 minutes. End-users have control over their spam, reducing the workload on IT and reducing the chance of misidentification. Spam rules are automatically updated to ensure that new and emerging threats are rapidly blocked.
Low cost. SpamTitan is significantly less expensive than competing solutions, brining enterprise-class security within easy reach of the smaller business.
- BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Deploy an email security solution to reduce the volume of spam, reduce the workload of mail servers and to enhance the productivity of end-users. - THE SPAMTITAN SOLUTION
NRC Broadcasting installed SpamTitan ISO to protect 130 staff in 7 different offices from spam, viruses and other email-borne threats. - THE RESULTS
Spam almost completely eliminated.
Almost 1 million spam email blocked each month.
End-user experience and productivity substantially improved
Secured the critical email infrastructure and eliminated virus outbreaks and associated problems.
Staff are able to manage their own spam settings, reducing the IT department's workload.
