by G Hunt | May 8, 2015 | SpamTitan News
SpamTitan was awarded its 32nd Virus Bulletin award for its combined high spam catch rate and low rate of false positives. SpamTitan today announced that it has once again been awarded a Virus Bulletin test award. The Virus Bulletin anti-spam test is an independent global publication specific to the field of spam, viruses and related malware.
SpamTitan delivers unprecedented protection including an extremely high spam catch rate of 99.9%. Not only did SpamTitan have an extremely high spam catch rate, it combined that with a low number of false positives, an excellent result when compared with all of the products tested. Martijn Grooten, author of the Virus Bulletin Anti-spam comparative review stated that ‘the product’s 32nd VBSpam award is as well deserved as ever.
by G Hunt | Apr 13, 2015 | TitanHQ News
Cybersecurity Ventures has announced the Q2 2015 edition of the Cybersecurity 500 list. The list is a global compilation of cybersecurity solutions and service firms worth watching. SpamTitan Technologies came in at number 123 for Q2 up from number 393 in the previous quarter. “We recognise the importance of being included on such a significant industry list as the Cybersecurity 500. At SpamTitan, our staff are assisting our customers on a daily basis in dealing with the constant threat of cyber attack, and this is now as important for the smaller businesses as it is for the fortune 500 company. We are delighted to be working with Cybersecurity 500 in highlighting the need for vigilance and raising awareness for all businesses.”” says Ronan Kavanagh, CEO, SpamTitan Technologies.
So far, only four companies on the list come from Ireland; email and web security vendor SpamTitan Technologies headquartered in Galway, Netfort, VigiTrust and PixAlert. The list is based on the recommendations of a range of experts including CISOs, VCs, security professionals rather than simply reflecting size and revenue. According to Steve Morgan, founder and CEO at Cybersecurity Ventures. “We do not think a list of the largest cybersecurity companies is useful to our target audience of cyber and IT security decision makers, evaluators, and recommenders”. “They already know who the biggest vendors are. Instead, we give a nod to the hottest and most innovative companies” says Morgan.
The Cybersecurity 500 is online at www.Cybersecurity500.com
by G Hunt | Apr 10, 2015 | MSP News, Spam News
What can SpamTitan anti spam do for Managed Service Providers? Interview with anti spam, email security, anti malware Steven Kenny, Head of Support Services, SpamTitan Technologies.
Can you start by telling us about SpamTitan?
Steven : SpamTitan began producing email security solutions over 15 years ago, and now provides powerful email and web security solutions to businesses worldwide. Security and networks have grown more complicated in the past 15 years, but SpamTitan has remained focused on delivering easy-to-use solutions that are comprehensive but not complex.Who do the experts turn to when they need a security solution? Seventy-three percent of SpamTitan’s customers are Managed Service Providers or system integrators. SpamTitans’ security solutions are used by network administrators and IT managers in 124 countries.
What Does the Email Threat Landscape Look Like Today for MSPs?
Steven : Email threats are increasing and getting more sophisticated, putting MSPs’ customers, their finances, and their identities at risk. MSPs may find their very survival as businesses under threat. Their antagonists, originally the hackers down the street, are now highly professional international crime gangs that are often based in Russia or China where law enforcement can’t get to them. Their attacks are getting increasingly sophisticated, with damage that might be evident immediately but sometimes isn’t apparent for years.
The most devastating attacks often start with a seemingly innocuous email. The recent Carbanak financial attack where a hacker group stole as much as $1 billion from banks and other financial companies worldwide since 2013 started with a simple phishing email. The target breach from last year was a massive assault that exposed the credit card and personal data of more than 110 million customers, appears to have started with a malware-laced email sent to employees at a firm that did business with Target. Anyone operating a data center—or anyone just connecting to the Internet–needs to make fighting spam and malware a top priority. Everyone who goes online must have the tools to fight phishing and social engineering.
Let’s talk about email. How do you convey the importance of email protection in today’s culture?
Steven : Email is still an important business tool. It’s also the favourite method of entry for attackers. No news there. As a gateway to sensitive customer information, crucial databases, and other valuable data, email remains one of the most effective threat vectors around.
Email is older than the web, which may mean that it’s lost some of its lustre. Many see social media platforms as more exciting, and the fact that email is non-proprietary means no one is pushing its agenda. But email is actually growing in influence; as the number of internet users grow, so does email usage. Every social media account requires an email address, and most people have more than one.
Email security solutions need to continue to evolve to keep up with the increasingly sophisticated attacks that threaten all of us. At SpamTitan, we do our best to educate the IT community and potential customers on the consequences of doing nothing. Putting the right protection in place is key. Prevention is cheaper and easier than dealing with the damage and financial loss resulting from a successful hacking attack.
What should MSPs be doing today to protect themselves from email threats?
Steven: MSPs often provide email security as a service. One customer getting hacked can result in the IP address for many customers getting hacked – a single bot on the network can bring down the service for multiple customers. Preventing IP blacklisting in the first place is critical; MSPs need to ensure the anti-spam solution they deploy has features such as IP rotation, bandwidth throttling, and rate controls, allowing limits to be set for emails sent per unit time, size, domain and per mailbox. If a potential blacklisting event is detected, the solution also needs to alert the network administrators so action can be taken. MSP IP addresses can be very well protected by using specific features within SpamTitan like Rate Controls and IP Delivery Pool features.
MSPs see their margins squeezed by commoditisation of services by technology giants. They need more cost effective infrastructure and technology at the same time as they’re being pressured to continuously improve customer service. MSP margins, which directly affect profits, are being squeezed by the economy, competition, and the need to keep up with technology. MSPs customer vary and some like more control of the service provided than others. With SpamTitan MSPs can delegate administration of domain groups and/or domains to their customers, this provides some control to the customer and also frees up the MSPs time to deal with other issues.
Attackers still rely on email as a method for deploying malware, whether via advanced phishing attacks, drive by downloads – the list of threat delivery methods is increasing all the time. There is no single cure for these persistent and increasing threats. Powerful email security (inbound and outbound filtering) provides a barrier for attackers to overcome. SpamTitan includes the latest version of the Kaspersky anti-virus software which offers zero-day threat detection via Cloud based signatures. MSPs need to deliver consistent protection. A heavily layered security solution like SpamTitan successfully delivers this integrated approach.
What kind of MSPs use SpamTitan?
Steven : MSPs looking to offer their customers world-class email security without the requirement of sophisticated infrastructure, expensive expertise, or massive time investment for what should ideally be an invisible service. Because spam filtering is considered to be an integral part of an email service MSPs, customers aren’t willing to pay extra for it.
The MSP customers who use SpamTitan are knowledgeable and know what they want in a solution. Many are moving from cumbersome and overly complex products. They know what they need to find in an alternative that really works for them.
What’s the most common feedback you get from MSP customers?
Steven : How easy SpamTitan is to set up and the fact that once deployed there are no reports of customers being hit by spam or email viruses. It’s not surprising that our solution is so successful; it uses multiple layers of testing and filtering and comes with double anti-virus protection.
Our MSP appreciate the fact that SpamTitan is easy to use, easy to manage, and extremely affordable compared to other solutions they’ve tested. A major reason why MSPs invite SpamTitan into their product portfolio is the attractive pricing. With MSP margins shrinking MSPs are very careful about planning their technology to give them the edge in the market and to provide reasonable returns, and they find they can depend on SpamTitan to deliver.
If you would like to find out more about SpamTitan and how it can help you offer a more secure and profitable service we would be delighted to hear form you. You can email us at info@spamtitan.com or call +1 813 304 2544 (US) or +353 91 545555 (IRL).
by G Hunt | Mar 31, 2015 | Spam News
Irish security firms were noticeably lacking from the latest Cybersecurity 500, a recently setcyber security, network security up global listing of the “hottest” firms in the cybersecurity sector. So far, only two companies come from Ireland; email and web security vendor SpamTitan Technologies headquartered in Galway and VigiTrust in Dublin.
Launched last October by a Californian Research company. The firm behind the Cybersecurity 500 explains that the intention was to create a list of firms worth watching rather than simply reflecting size and revenue. The list is based on the recommendations of a range of experts including CISOs, VCs, security professionals encountered at global security events and during research. The company explain that none of the companies listed paid anything simply to be included.
by G Hunt | Jan 1, 2015 | Spam News
Data breaches and cyberattacks are scary and not just for consumers but also for IT professionals and small business owners. It’s hard to really grasp the level of fear that these attacks generate. Successful cyberattacks cost businesses a lot of money by scaring away investors and customers not to mention the expensive damage that can be done to an organizations computer network. The average cost of cyber crime attacks per organisation in the United States is estimated at 12.69 million U.S. dollars. Second-ranked is Germany averaging 8.13 million U.S. dollars in damages per company attack.
Here’s a discouragingly long list of some of the biggest retail cyber attacks of the past year.
Sony. One of the most recent hacks, the Sony break-in compromised 47,000 social security numbers, sometimes with accompanying names, birth dates, and addresses.
Neiman Marcus. One of the first announced hacks of the year, the Neiman Marcus attack actually took place in 2013. The data breach set off alerts in the company’s security system 60,000 times. The data of 350,000 customers was compromised.
Sally Beauty. Slightly better than the Neiman Marcus breach. Only—only!—280,000 unlucky customers had their data compromised.
White Lodging. White Lodging is a hotel management company that manages franchises for hotels such as the Hilton, Marriott, and Sheraton. In February it was announced that there had been a data breach in the restaurants and gift shops in 14 of the managed hotels.
Michaels. The craft supply store announced in January that the credit card information of 2.6 million customers had possibly been exposed in a breach that lasted eight months. Not only that: in its subsidiary Aaron Brothers stores, another 400,000 cards may have been compromised.
Affinity Gaming. The company, which manages casinos, announced that they found evidence in May that their credit card system had been hacked.
Bebe Stores. The women’s clothing chain confirmed in December that there had been a data breach in November in their 175 retail stores.
Staples. Staples announced in December that it had suffered a data breach occurring over a period of six months that compromised 1.16 million credit and debit cards. The data breach was discovered because the stolen card information was being used for fraudulent purchases.
Albertsons. Cyber thieves hacked into a series of stores under the Albertsons’ umbrella, including SuperValu, Acme, Shaw’s Supermarket, Hornbacher’s, Star Market, Cub Foods, Farm Fresh, Shop ‘N Save, and Shoppers Food & Pharmacy.
PF Changs. In June, the restaurant chain announced that a security breach had occurred that affected the information of its customers at 33 restaurants.
UPS. UPS announced in August that credit card information might have been compromised at 51 UPS stores.
Dairy Queen. The Dairy Queen breach may have affected 600,000 unfortunate ice cream lovers.
Goodwill. The Goodwill breach compromised 868,000 debit and credit cards.
Home Depot. This was one of the hugest breaches of the year, with a mind-boggling 56 million debit and credit cards affected.
Sourcebooks. Sourcebooks is an online bookseller. Its online system was hacked last spring, with data from just over 5,000 customers being stolen.
Kmart. Kmart revealed in October that a data breach had taken place in its system.
Staples. The Staples breach may have compromised the credit and debit card information of 1.16 million customers.
Domino’s Pizza. The pizza chain had the information of 650,000 customers in Belgium and France stolen and held for ransom by the hacking group Rex Mundi.
EBay. Hackers absconded with name, address, phone number, and birth date information on 145 million accounts.
Jimmy John’s. The sandwich chain announced in September that credit and debit card information had been compromised at 216 outlets.
Spec’s. This Texas wine chain suffered a 17-month breach that compromised the information of perhaps 550,000 customers.
Whew, pretty bad, so perhaps it’s not surprising the Secret Service estimated that 1,000 American merchants were affected by attacks like this during the summer of 2014 and that many of them didn’t even know it. It’s war out there, and according to the Ponemon Institute, only one-third of computer security experts say they do continuous database monitoring. Twenty-two percent say they don’t monitor at all, which makes winning the war a challenge.
Although many organizations are still lacking confidence in their ability to prevent a cyber attack or data breach there are many highly-developed and proven security tools available that provide a vital layer of protection from security threats to help IT Pros secure their organizations.
