Anti-spam controls are reducing the reliability of e-mail communications Sixty six percent of respondents said that legitimate emails they should have received have been blocked by a spam filter - known as false positives in the industry. Two thirds of those respondents said this happened on a monthly basis but a quarter of those surveyed revealed that they experience this problem on a weekly basis. While 51 percent of those respondents said time wasted was the most significant repercussion, 42 percent have missed a deadline as a result. "The spam hysteria of the last few years has created the impression that blocking unwanted -email is the primary concern for businesses with the result that some service providers and companies appear to have lost sight of their users' real needs and requirements," said Nigel Brooke, VP EMEA, Mirapoint. "The speed and reliability of e-mail delivery is integral to its value as a business communications tool. Filtering unwanted messages ultimately serves no purpose if it undermines the effectiveness of the overall message network's responsiveness." Nine out of ten of respondents are aware of an e-mail policy at work but more than half of those surveyed are not required to formally sign up to this policy. The key to an effective e-mail policy is enforcement - there must be an element of compulsion if the policy is to be taken seriously. This is evident by the fact that while the vast majority of respondents were aware of the existence of an e-mail policy at work, 29 percent of those surveyed admitted to sending an email containing inappropriate content, 34 percent said they had forwarded an e-mail chain letter and 38 percent admitted they had forwarded an unsolicited product offer. "In the same way that Internet misuse policies are now a provision of most employment contracts, e-mail policies should also be made a standard provision, outlining the level of care expected of employees when using email," added Brooke. "In this way, all staff are made explicitly aware of their e-mail obligations and the penalties of e-mail misuse." "Preventing spam is essential to preserve e-mail as a productive business tool and protect organisations from attacks. Estimates for the volume of spam as a percentage of e-mails are approaching nearly 80 percent and spyware, Trojans and Adware are now contained in a large proportion of spam e-mails. However, anti-spam solutions need to be implemented correctly to protect end users and allow them to continue to use e-mail productively. More than a third of respondents have missed deadlines as a result of legitimate e-mails being blocked by spam filters - this could have been prevented by use of standard features such as "white lists" and allowing users timely access to spam quarantine folders." Claire Sellick, event director Infosecurity Europe. www.mirapoint.com
•Date: 28th April 2005 • Region: UK/World •Type:
Article •Topic:
ISM |
