https://googledata.org Everything Google: News, Products, Services, Content, Culture Thu, 19 Mar 2015 22:49:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.7.5 https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/2008-the-year-in-spam/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=2008-the-year-in-spam https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/2008-the-year-in-spam/#comments Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:42:00 +0000 [Ed. Note: The spam data cited in this post is drawn from the Postini Message Security network, which processes and culls spam from more than 2 billion enterprise email connections per day, giving Google strong insight into the state of the spam industry overall. For a discussion of what Google is doing to keep spam out of your Gmail inboxes on the consumer side, check out this post.]

In November 2008 a large source of the world's spam, the McColo network, was taken offline. Prior to that, spam levels had been holding relatively constant. But when McColo went offline, we saw spam drop by 70% compared with previous levels. However, spammers are recovering with vigor.

While spam is still down overall, it's important to note its rate of growth. Spam levels are up by 156% since November 2008. As spammers recover, the increased rate of spam growth will likely have total spam volumes back to pre-McColo levels within a few months.



Although McColo received a lot of attention, the highest volume of spam in 2008 actually came on April 23, which was an all-time high spam level for Google Message Security data centers. That day, the average number of spam messages blocked per user was 194. This peak was driven by an unprecedented number of non-delivery receipt (NDR) attacks we saw in April. One customer who was the target of a specific NDR attack said that their users were receiving an average of 100 emails every minute.

As spammers fill the void left by McColo, it's reasonable to anticipate a decreasing rate of growth as spam reaches November 2008 levels. However, since the November levels weren't even the peak for the year, and since spammers appear to be quickly recovering, the question remains: Where will spam volume top out in 2009? Will it be near the November 2008 level? the April 2008 level? Or higher?



One way to approach that question might be to compare 2008 overall levels with previous years. Spam threats rose visibly in 2008, reflecting the overall trend of rising attacks. Even with the drop in November 2008, spam levels climbed 25% over 2007. Our statistics show that the average unprotected user would have received 45,000 spam messages in 2008 (up from 36,000 in 2007). All indicators suggest this trend will continue as virus, malware, and link-based attacks become both more frequent and more ingenious.



Looking ahead to the rest of 2009, we expect viruses sent via email and in blended attacks (email and web) to continue to be a serious threat. During the second half of 2008, virus volume increased six-fold from the first half of the year. These spam messages would often try to fool users by mimicking legitimate emails such as package tracking notifications or invoices that included virus attachments. Another popular technique in 2008 was emailing spoofed news alerts with URLs that would link to a website hosting the virus.

We can also expect that viruses and malware will continue to be a key tool and area of focus for spammers to upgrade their platforms. Even though virus attachment volumes have been low so far this year, we expect spammers to work hard to rebuild their networks to replace what was lost in the McColo shutdown.

Of course, the only thing we can really say with certainty about 2009 is that spam and viruses will continue to be unpredictable. And given that uncertainty, virus detection and blocking technologies become even more important. Last year we released advanced new anti-virus heuristics that specifically targeted zero-hour vulnerability (the period of time between when a new virus enters the wild and the release of the anti-virus signature file). When the zero-hour protection identifies a suspicious message, the message is scanned using the new anti-virus heuristics, and if confirmed as a virus, the message is quarantined.

The chart below is an example of our new heuristic virus detection and blocking at work. On October 1, 2008, our automated technology detected a viral message pattern (later identified as new strain of the Downloader-AAP!zip) in the wild and started quarantining messages with this virus. Five hours later we received the new virus signature file from one of our anti-virus partners and the signature-based blocks began to take effect.



As seen from the roller-coast ride of spam and viruses in 2008, spam has again demonstrated its resiliency. Despite eliminating a major source, spam keeps coming back. Spammers are re-investing with increasing speed to evolve their systems into decentralized, harder-to-detect ecosystems. If you'd like to know more about Google's anti-spam solution for businesses, visit us at www.google.com/a/security.

Posted by Amanda Kleha, Google Message Security Team

]]> https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/2008-the-year-in-spam/feed/ 0 https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/calculating-the-true-cost-of-fighting-spam/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=calculating-the-true-cost-of-fighting-spam https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/calculating-the-true-cost-of-fighting-spam/#comments Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:44:00 +0000 ROI calculator lets you see how much spam can impact expenses and productivity, particularly if your current anti-spam solution is waning in effectiveness.

Once you quantify how much spam is costing your company, it makes sense to re-evaluate the IT options for managing spam. The first, and perhaps biggest, decision is whether to keep spam filtering in-house or use a hosted service. It can be difficult to add up the true expenses of each solution. On the surface, the cost of an appliance may seem reasonable, but the up-front costs are just the beginning in a complete cost-of-ownership calculation.

At Google, we believe that email security makes sense as a hosted service for several cost-related reasons:

* A cloud computing solution provides you with a predictable expense. A spike in spam can hit at any time, and companies using an in-house solution may find themselves dealing with the unexpected capital expense of a new appliance to deal with the load.

* You save on maintenance costs. After installation, most in-house appliances require regular upgrades and maintenance. With a hosted solution, all the updates are handled through the cloud. Nothing to worry about or budget for.

* Using the cloud makes email security more effective. With a hosted service such as Google Message Security, you tap into a network of intelligence that spans more than 40,000 businesses and 14 million users, reaping the benefits of the economies of scale that come with that.

To help you understand the whole cost of spam, we're introducing a TCO (total cost of ownership) calculator, which lets you compare expenses for in-house appliances versus hosted services. Using a three-year time horizon and considering both start-up and maintenance costs, companies can save thousands by choosing a hosted service. The graph below models the results of one cost scenario, for a 100-user company:



Let's look at a customer who was re-evaluating their spam solution last year: Gaines, Wolter, & Kinney, P.C. is a civil litigation firm in Birmingham, Alabama, that specializes in tort defense. They needed a solution that would reduce the inflow of network traffic and be cost effective. David Hebert, an IT administrator for GW&K, recalls, "Our limits on connection bandwidth meant that a service that filtered out spam was a no-brainer decision." But David needed data to convince management that a change was essential. He used a ROI calculator and found that they were losing 122 hours per employee in productivity each year to spam. With the hourly rate of their lawyers, this meant that choosing Google Message Security paid for itself in 1 day.

If your business is interested in learning more about how hosted services like Google Message Security can save you money and increase productivity, visit us at www.google.com/a/security.

Posted by Amanda Kleha, Google Security and Compliance Team

]]> https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/calculating-the-true-cost-of-fighting-spam/feed/ 0 https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/google-positioned-in-leaders-quadrant/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-positioned-in-leaders-quadrant https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/google-positioned-in-leaders-quadrant/#comments Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:06:00 +0000 In their recently released Magic Quadrant for Email Security Boundaries (published September 11, 2008), Gartner Inc., an information technology research and advisory company, placed Google in the "Leaders Quadrant." Quadrant leaders, as Gartner defines them, are "performing well today, have a clear vision of market direction, and are actively building competencies to sustain their leadership position in the market." Quadrant leaders also "offer a comprehensive and proficient range of email security functionality, and show evidence of superior vision and execution for current and anticipated customer requirements.

Leaders typically have relatively high market share and/or strong revenue growth, own a good portion of their threat or content-filtering capabilities, and demonstrate positive customer feedback for anti-spam efficacy, and related service and support." The report goes on to say that "The email security market is rapidly maturing, yet continues to show strong growth and remains a 'must have' security purchase."

We're pleased to be included in this report and recognized in the leaders quadrant, as it underlines, in our opinion, the importance we attach to protecting against email-based threats and the ways we're helping our customers do so. Since the integration of the Postini email security product line in 2007 into Google's Enterprise Apps, Google has continued to innovate these products with functionality for our customers, including a new early detection quarantine that uses our own heuristics to detect new virus strains before virus signatures are available. We have also added new content filter types, policy prioritization for messages that trigger more than one policy, and new policy engine interface features.

The Gartner Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2008 by Gartner, Inc., and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Posted by Adam Swidler, Google Enterprise Product Marketing

]]> https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/google-positioned-in-leaders-quadrant/feed/ 0 https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/security-spotlight-july-virus-attacks/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=security-spotlight-july-virus-attacks https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/security-spotlight-july-virus-attacks/#comments Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:53:00 +0000 Posted by Amanda Kleha, Google Apps Security & Compliance Team

In July, our Postini datacenters saw the biggest volume of email virus attacks so far in 2008, with a peak of nearly 10 million messages on July 24. One of the more prominent attacks in the month involved a spoofed UPS package-tracking link that was intended to lure recipients into clicking on it and downloading malware. Our zero-hour virus protection technology first started catching these emails on July 20.



Many of the viruses we see follow a similar format, in which an email with an embedded website link in the message is changed from what the link displays. Another recent example was a spoofed CNN newsletter sent out by spammers. In this case, the content included current news stories with numerous links in the message. The majority of the links were valid, but there were some that were replaced with malicious links. As soon as our technology started detecting these messages, we implemented a filter to stop these elusive viruses and voila! -- all of our 14 million business users were protected. This network effect and rapid protection against these new tactics is why businesses are increasingly moving their email security into the cloud.

Viruses tend to increase during the summer months, and August is already showing some new types of viruses. On August 5, we saw a large inflow of messages with an encrypted .RAR attachment. The overall 2008 trend has been a decrease in the use of attachments, so this new virus is confirmation that spam doesn't follow trends for long.

These examples are also a good reminder about the importance of educating our colleagues, friends, and family on how to safely interact with email -- namely, that we should all be careful about clicking on links in emails, even if those messages appear to be from people or organizations we know.

Join Google security experts for an upcoming webinar for IT professionals that will explore the topic "How spam is changing your business email, and what to do about it" on Friday, August 15, at 10:00 am PDT.

For more information on how Google can help your business secure its email and web traffic, visit us at www.google.com/a/security.

]]> https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/security-spotlight-july-virus-attacks/feed/ 0 https://googledata.org/google-apps/google-innovation-across-america-find-share-secure/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-innovation-across-america-find-share-secure https://googledata.org/google-apps/google-innovation-across-america-find-share-secure/#comments Fri, 16 May 2008 00:17:00 +0000

Google is renowned for its innovative approach to business, ours and that of our users. We are our own best case study of a large enterprise operating in the cloud. And every day, more and more companies join us. In fact, to date there are more than 10 million active users on Google Apps, our suite of collaboration tools for business that includes Gmail, Calendar, Docs, and much more.

But simply adopting Google technology is only the first step. A common question we get is, "Now that we are using Google products, how can we take full advantage of them?" Many of you want to know how you can help your employees find, share, and secure information in a way that is both fast and scalable. Oh, and without incurring enormous costs.

So we've decided to visit you in the places where you live. In June alone, we'll be in seven different cities (see details here), with more to be added throughout the rest of the year, for a full day of presentations, demos, and conversation.

In each location, a Google executive will offer a keynote address on how you can scale innovation in your company and how Google technology can help you become more creative, productive, and efficient. Then, in breakout sessions, we will help you take a closer look at Google enterprise search, Google Apps, and Google security and compliance . Finally, you'll be able to get your hands on a range of Google products and services and try them out with a Google expert standing by to answer your questions.

The events are free and open to current Google customers and to prospective customers with at least 500 employees that would like to learn more about how Google innovation can change their businesses. Please go to our registration page to sign up and see the full itinerary. Hope to see you on the road!

]]> https://googledata.org/google-apps/google-innovation-across-america-find-share-secure/feed/ 0 https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/google-web-security-for-enterprise-now-protects-roaming-users/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-web-security-for-enterprise-now-protects-roaming-users https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/google-web-security-for-enterprise-now-protects-roaming-users/#comments Thu, 08 May 2008 14:59:00 +0000 Posted by Tim Johnson, Product Marketing Manager

Google Web Security for Enterprise protects organizations of all sizes against web malware attacks in real time and enables the safe, productive use of the web, without incurring hardware, upfront capital, or IT management costs. The product enables organizations to control how employees use the Internet, and provides easy-to-use tools to create, enforce, and monitor the right web policy for your organization. Now, through a new add-on feature, we're extending that security to users wherever they may be working.

Protecting off-network users used to require them to connect via a VPN when they were out of the office — often with mixed results. With this new feature, all off-network users' web traffic is automatically directed to scanning infrastructure to enforce your policies and protect their computers, requiring no action on the part of individuals. It's easy to deploy and users can't tamper with it, ensuring your security and appropriate use policies are always in place.

In this way we hope to help your organization take greater control over its security, bandwidth and web communications. Google Web Security is powered by Postini with technology from ScanSafe, and integrated with Google Apps security and compliance messaging services. It's available in North America and Europe, and you can find out more on our Web Security page.

]]> https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/google-web-security-for-enterprise-now-protects-roaming-users/feed/ 0 https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/google-message-discovery-now-available-online/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-message-discovery-now-available-online https://googledata.org/google-enterprise/google-message-discovery-now-available-online/#comments Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:47:00 +0000 Posted by Bill Kee, Product Marketing

We're happy to announce that Google Message Discovery is now available for purchase online. Google Message Discovery is a package of online services that gives businesses more control over the storage and security of their email. Now any business, small or large, can easily implement strong email security as well as reliable archiving.

The cornerstone of Google Message Discovery is email archiving. What is email archiving? Many businesses already have some email backup because they recognize it's critical to:

• recover lost mail
• comply with regulations regarding email retention
  
• access emails in response to a litigation or other investigation
  

The problem is, the backup systems many businesses use, such as tape drives or extra email servers, aren't sufficient. It's costly and complex to store huge amounts of data on email servers. And it's nearly impossible to find specific emails quickly when searching through a pile of backup tapes.

Email archiving is different. Unlike a backup, an archiving service:

• provides storage that automatically scales with your needs
  
• captures all sent and received messages (Backup systems merely take a snapshot of your mail storage at a certain time, say every night at midnight, and don't capture messages that may have been sent and then deleted in the meantime)
  
• allows specific policies to be set around message retention time periods
  
• allows authorized administrators to search across email for all users quickly
  

The message archiving service in Google Message Discovery is designed to help businesses of all sizes easily achieve these goals. It's included with Google Apps Premier Edition, and also supports other email systems, such as Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Domino.

Since the service is hosted by Google, there's no hardware or software to install. And it provides powerful search tools to help you quickly locate relevant emails when you need them. Message Discovery also includes email filtering and security, which blocks spam, viruses and other threats before they reach your servers or inbox.

We see email archiving and security as a foundational element for helping businesses organize their information and make it accessible and useful. And now that we've made it available online- starting at $25 per user, per year- we look forward to helping organizations quickly take greater control over their email.

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