September 5th, 2010
While we may be able to weed out the countless junk mail we get in our personal email accounts, businesses are more at risk if their employees receive spam. While they may have been forwarded what appeared to be innocent email from a friend or another business, it could just as likely be an email virus. Viruses, especially harmful ones, have the potential to wreak no end of havoc across your organization through the loss of data or damage to your computer servers.
So how do you control staff from opening these harmful spam emails? Using an effective spam filter that identifies and filters out detected spam from your network is an excellent start. However it is also important to monitor staff usage, to ensure productivity is not affected, as well as help identify those who regularly receive non-business related emails which can increase the risk of viruses.
Why not get the complete anti spam solution from us here at MessageStream. Not only do we offer leading spam filter protection that prevents junk mail from trying to enter your network, we also give you statistical email reporting. These detailed management reports let you easily review email usage for all staff so you can monitor activity as well as identify who could be putting your business at risk through potentially harmful emails. All this is available at your finger tips with reports delivered based on your preferred frequency – daily, weekly or monthly. So take control today and protect your business from any virus threats.
Tags: junk email, Spam Blocker, Spam Filter, Spam Services
September 2nd, 2010
Have you ever been a victim of identify theft? Unfortunately, these days many people have in the UK. Identify theft occurs when criminals have access to your personal details and use them for fraudulent activities such as opening bank accounts under your name. There are many ways for criminals to steal your personal details. From hacking into your computer, through online or telephone scams and even rummaging through your rubbish bins to get copies of old bills or bank statements.
A common form of identity theft is through spam emails – often referred to as phishing. Phishing usually results from spammers sending out junk email with the sole purpose of stealing your personal information. They are often disguised as coming from legitimate sources such as big name banks, and link through to bogus websites that ask you to confirm your details.
Don’t make it easy for these fraudsters to steal your details. Now more than ever you need to protect yourself against identity theft. At MessageStream, we can safeguard you against the threat of identify theft. Through our award winning anti spam technology, our filters can detect 99% of all spam that attempts to enter your network. We run over 90 deep and intelligence tests on every single email that will detect whether you should be receiving the email. Our spam blocker then safely ensures these particular email addresses are blacklisted so you don’t continue to receive this junk mail from those spammers. Make sure you don’t become the next victim of identity theft.
Tags: Anti-Spam, junk email, Spam Blocker, spam blocking
August 17th, 2010
Some may say that blocking spam from reaching your inbox is essentially blocking free speech. Well that could be the argument by spammers themselves as they try to justify sending out these unsolicited emails. However, true censorship would block this form of advertising all together, which is not the case in the UK. Under UK legislation some marketing emails can still be sent until the recipient decides to opt out, as long as they were sent within the UK. Spammers are then no longer permitted to email you from that address under the Data Protection Act 1998.
So you have the right to opt out of receiving future emails from these spammers – but who really has the time to wade through the copious amounts of junk mail we get each day? Plus by accessing and unsubscribing from these emails, you indicate to spammers that your email address is live thus making you a target for more junk mail. Additionally, with viruses, inappropriate content, or phishing scams contained in spam, a business is exposing itself to further risk if they access these emails.
Fortunately, anti spam detection services offer spam blockers that can simply block junk mail from entering you server without you having to do the filtering yourself. Here at Message Stream, our anti spam protection can be added to your organisation’s email server quickly and easily. By using sophisticated spam filtering and spam blocking techniques, we can save you time, hassle and even money by ensuring only the good emails reach your network.
Tags: Anti-Spam, junk email, preventing Spam, Spam Services
August 8th, 2010
Some of us may think we can easily recognise any junk mail we receive in our inbox – and simply just delete it. But the spammers of today are much more clever. Many can disguise junk mail by making it look legitimate, when it is a phishing scam trying to steal your personal data.
So how do these spammers get your email address? Well there are several ways they can go about it. By simply guessing your email address, or if you register online to a bogus site – even unsubscribing to certain emails means spammers can get hold of your address.
For a business, this can create a lot of hassle as it is time consuming and a drain on staff resources having to filter through every individual email received. Plus it can also expose a business to potential risks through the threat of viruses or email scams.
At Message Stream, we make it our mission to stop those unwanted emails from reaching your inbox. Through our leading anti spam protection we simply identify and filter any junk mail before it enters your network. In fact our spam filter is so accurate; we can identify 99% of junk mail making it one of the most accurate catch rates available. But rather than take our word for it – we have also been recognised by the test industry leader Virus Bulletin who recently awarded us two VB Spam awards. So stop letting Spam become a headache for your business, and let Message Stream stop it for you.
Tags: Anti-Spam, junk email, spam blocker technology, Spam Email, Spam Filter
July 20th, 2010
An unexpected disruption to your business, whether through fire, floods or any other natural disaster, can cause major damage to your IT systems – in particular your mail servers . Consider losing access to your emails, and the difficulty it can cause in not being able to maintain contact with your customers, suppliers and staff.
It is essential these days that businesses engage in the right business continuity planning early on, to help mitigate against even the most severe consequences. Email continuity should form a critical part of this business continuity planning. It enables a business to easily maintain email communications in the event of a mail server outage or scheduled maintenance. Through the use of a standby email system, it provides quick back up for a business so they can still access, send and receive emails – keeping those necessary lines of communications open.
We at Message Stream are here to help protect your business against any unexpected disruptions. Not only do we offer superior anti spam protection, our fully managed email continuity system lets you quickly switch to a hot-standby mail service should your mail server suffer an outage. Any domain name listed for email archiving or email filtering will also be added to this emergency system, letting you continue to use email communications during an outage. Our emergency email system is easy and quick to switch to, and results in minimal interruption to your business operations. Reduce your email risk and protect your business through our leading email continuity services.
Tags: email continuity, email filtering, email risk, junk email
July 17th, 2010
These days, it is virtually a given that businesses need to tackle the problem of spam. Aside from spam being a major nuisance, there is also the threat of viruses, phishing activities and the potential to damage whole server systems that a business now risks facing.
Fortunately, today there are innovative anti spam detection services that can solve this problem. Anti spam protection offers a whole host of services including spam filtering and spam blocking. But what is the difference between the two?
Spam filtering is the process of organising and quarantining junk mail into special folders whilst still allowing you access to these messages. A spam blocker on the other hand detects junk mail and potential viruses that attempt to enter your network and deletes it before you even have to see it.
A spam filter is often favoured by those who want the option of viewing any email their network receives. A spam blocker suits those who do not want to have the hassle of dealing with spam, and so these emails are deleted before even entering the domain.
We at Message Stream offer the complete hosted anti spam service that includes advanced spam blocking and filtering. In fact, our anti spam protection is so thorough it can reduce junk mail by 99%, with our antivirus protection preventing any hint of viruses from wreaking havoc across your network. It can be easily added to your existing mail server so requires very little maintenance on your part. We help you tackle spam head on – making your life easier.
Tags: anti spam service, junk email, spam blocking, Spam Service
July 14th, 2010
Have you ever received an undeliverable email report – but have no recollection of sending the email in the first place? This type of activity is the result of spammers and is known as back-scatter which, unfortunately, is pretty common place today. As spammers generally send wide spread junk mail to thousands or even millions of email addresses, they are not particularly concerned with who receives their messages. However, any undeliverable messages are usually sent to a live email address – and the risk is, they choose yours to receive these messages.
While receiving the odd junk email may not be that disruptive, back-scatter can result in you being bombarded with a barrage of undeliverable emails, which can even see your address ending up on a spam blacklist. As frustrating as this can be, there is no central spam body you can report this to. You could possibly take legal action to track down these offenders who are forging your email address, but there is no telling the time and cost involved in doing so – especially for a business.
Fortunately, there is a way of filtering back-scatter before any of these undeliverable messages even reach your network.
Offering one of the most sophisticated back-scatter email filtering systems around, we at Message Stream can stop this form of spam becoming a problem for you. Our anti spam system can cleverly filter these undeliverable messages and successfully remove them before they begin to flood your network. So let us get to back-scatter before it gets to you.
Tags: email filtering, junk email, spam, Spam Filter
June 30th, 2010
It is estimated that ninety percent of all email is considered to be spam, which makes it incredibly difficult for companies to identify genuine emails quickly. Many businesses depend upon email in order to communicate with customers, receive and send orders for merchandise, for marketing purposes and much more. Each day, employees waste valuable time sorting through emails, getting rid of junk emails, and trying to deal with legitimate emails. The junk emails are usually archived, as occasionally a genuine email will be missed when trying to sort through the messages.
If a customer email is missed as a result of the mass of spam email, there can be serious consequences, especially if the email was a query from a client or an order for merchandise. This can have a negative effect on customers who will not trade with a company who appears unreliable. There are steps that can be taken to prevent spam such as a spam blocker from the service provider but these are often not effective enough and the junk emails still get through.
There are ways to filter emails but many businesses don’t have the resources to employ an individual specifically for this purpose and the process is time consuming as well as being a drain on bandwidth. Outsourcing to a company such as here at MessageStream where we will stop spam before it reaches your inbox. We will ensure that emails are archived so that if you need to check them you can do. Outsourcing spam services is a low cost method to ensure your business isn’t affected by spam.
Tags: anti-spam technology, junk email, preventing Spam, Spam Blocker, Spam Services
June 27th, 2010
Spam is on the increase, and continues to be a huge problem for many individuals who rely on email to operate. As email is a low cost method of communication, it is acceptable for many to send out emails promoting goods to huge numbers of recipients, in the hope that some will click on links in the body of the email, or respond to them. There are some people who will make purchases from this type of email, and therefore makes it worthwhile.
Spam can be relatively harmless, and a percentage is just a form of direct marketing to promote websites or products for sale. However, this is still a large drain on resources for many companies, as employees spend time sifting through junk emails.
There is another type of spam called Phishing, which is when your personal details are at risk. Senders of these emails are trying to obtain your confidential information – such as bank account details, date of birth and more – to steal your identity. Other scam emails will contain viruses or spy ware which, when the link is clicked on, will spread to other users. For a business which holds confidential information, and also depends upon its email services to keep the business running, these types of email are particularly dangerous.
Here at MessageStream, we can supply an advanced form of protection through the use of spam services. These will block junk email before it reaches your inbox, leaving your employees to tackle their workload for the day without interruption.
Tags: junk email, Spam Blocker, Spam Email, Spam Service
June 20th, 2010
Many of the emails that you receive – advertising miracle products or services that you can’t manage without – are spam. The individual, or organisation, that sent the junk email will not have permission to send it. These types of email are not damaging to individuals, but are annoying, and many will not even be looked at. For a business though, the cost of employees scanning through junk emails searching for legitimate emails will be high. Although these emails are not usually responded to (or even looked at), the senders regard this spam as an opportunity to make profit from the small minority that will purchase the product advertised.
Scammers are often trying to con email recipients, either by selling you a product, which is either unfit for its purpose or which is never delivered. There will be no address or contact details for you to request your money back. You may even purchase a product that never arrives, only to find that the scammer has used your credit card details, or other confidential information.
Many individuals who start online businesses can easily fall prey to scams, losing money along the way as well as risking complaints from email recipients. The recommended course of action, is not to open emails that you have not requested or do not recognise. For a business, this isn’t always the best approach, as they will receive many emails throughout the course of a day. For companies, a hosted spam service like MessageStream is the most cost effective, and secure, course of action.
Tags: Anti-Spam, junk email, Spam Email, Spam Filter, Spam Service
