Stories by: Logan G. Harbaugh

Companies are finding themselves embroiled in a power crisis as they struggle to find ways to rein in soaring energy costs -- as well as do their part to address global climate change. However, how can you be certain that the power-saving strategies your company has adopted are, in fact, the best ones? After all, there are plenty of myths out there about saving energy that are patently false. In this report, we examine 10 such myths and bring the truth to light.

The Secure Computing IronMail E-Mail Gateway E2000 (v6.5.2) came in second in filtering performance, with 98 per cent of spam stopped, but placed eighth in false positives. The E2000 offers excellent capabilities in all other areas, with a wide range of secure content management features including scanning within attachments, policy-based rules for enforcing compliance, and pre-built rules for social security numbers, credit card numbers, and regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, GLBA (Gramm-Leach Bliley), and HIPAA.

The BorderWare Security Platform (v7.1), running on the SP-800 appliance, had the worst false positive performance of any product tested, and by a large margin: nine critical false positives and 171 bulk false positives. Its filtering rate was 96 per cent of spam caught, an acceptable number but below the median. To reduce the false positives, you'll need to count on a training period of several weeks during which users inspect the quarantine carefully and whitelist the senders from whom they want to receive e-mail.

The Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway P840 (v5.0) had excellent overall anti-spam performance, third in filtering and fifth in false positives, with a fair number of bulk false positives, but more than 97 per cent of spam caught. And the feature set is extensive, including application-layer firewall features for the back-end mail server, policy-based encryption, and capable outbound content protection.

I tested the Cisco IronPort C100 (v5.5.1) without the optional Symantec "Brightmail" engine, and it excelled nevertheless. Although the filtering rate was second lowest in the group at 93 per cent, which is still quite acceptable, the false positive performance was best in the test. The C100 registered only two bulk false positives and no critical false positives, a feat much more impressive than a high filtering rate.

Many products claim to filter out 99.9 per cent of spam, but the Sendio I.C.E. Box 3.0 is the first I've tested that actually did so. Sendio claims zero false positives as well, but that isn't accurate. Because Sendio's challenge/response mechanism requires a human from the sender before mail will be delivered, any bulk e-mail sent via an automated process (with no means to reply to the challenge) will be quarantined until released by the enduser. Products that truly avoid false positives, such as Cisco IronMail and Symantec, spare endusers the hassle.

The Tumbleweed MailGate 5650 (v3.1.2-4366-HF1) offers a broad set of features at a reasonable price, along with good anti-spam capabilities. Tumbleweed took third place in false positives and seventh in filtering, with a solid 95.5 per cent catch rate. In addition, its bulk classification was actually useful, with 97.48 per cent of mail classified as bulk being truly bulk mail.

The Barracuda Spam Firewall blocked more spam before filtering than any other appliance, using IP address reputation. As a result, spam as a percentage of total messages received was the lowest in the test. However, Barracuda also had the lowest percentage of spam caught, 88 per cent, which is acceptable but not great. Lower accuracy sometimes helps reduce the number of false positives, but it didn't seem to help the Barracuda much: one critical false positive and 33 bulk false positives rank sixth and fifth, respectively, among the nine solutions tested. Nevertheless, in terms of overall filtering performance, the Barracuda is definitely usable, especially after bulk senders are whitelisted.

For the third year in a row, Symantec Mail Security (v7.5) is the best overall performer in my tests. It didn't have the best score in false positives (it came in a close second), and it was fourth in catch rate, but considering both counts, along with feature set, pricing, and maturity, it comes in first. The Symantec product shows a level of sophistication and ease of use that only comes from being a class leader for a long time, and having all the sharp edges rounded off.

The Mirapoint RazorGate 160 (v3.8.4-GA) did reasonably well in anti-spam performance, placing fourth in filtering accuracy and seventh in false positives. That's well within useful performance, though admins should count on spending some time building whitelists if they have users who get a lot of bulk e-mail. Compliance and content filtering features were broad and easy to use, with scanning inside archives and the capability to hold encrypted e-mails for inspection if desired.