Spammers Strike Again With Image Spam via PDFs

TORONTO--(Marketwire - July 17, 2007) -

News Facts:

-- BorderWare Technologies today announced that its real-time, multi-application reputation service, BorderWare Security Network (BSN), reported a new trend in spam in which images are embedded in PDFs.

-- This means that spammers are able to sidestep today's commercial and open security solutions.

-- On any given day, over 30 image spam campaigns are being run, with over 50% of these being PDF based.

-- The BSN Portal tracks domain reputation in real time and gathers data from more than 8,000 customer systems in 65 countries.

-- Using its real-time analysis, BSN was able to detect the increase in PDF spam even as cases of traditional image spam were dropping.

-- BSN, in combination with BorderWare Security Platform's patent-pending Intercept™ Image Analysis technology and attachment scanning capabilities is able to detect and block image spam being sent via PDF.

Background for BSN:

-- BSN works by conducting ongoing, real-time reputation analysis of the content sent from IPs, domains and users across multiple applications -- email, web, IM and VoIP.

-- As BSN detects potentially compromised or infected traffic -- based on more than 30 metrics established by BorderWare -- individual domain or user behaviors are flagged, graded and rejected, ensuring that legitimate traffic can be sent and received without delay while compromised traffic is rejected.

-- Traditional reputation systems, focused primarily on email, simply base their reputation score on the traffic monitored from an IP address. However, many businesses and individuals today utilize service provider or hosted mail systems that share an IP address with many domains, which leads to an inaccurate assessment of their reputation.

-- BorderWare also provides "Google-style" Alerts for BSN, a new proactive notification system that lets visitors register their IP addresses on the site and be notified if any issues are found by BSN that cause concern.

-- BSN also features a Global Threat Map and a Threat Dashboard that shows where the worst threats are coming from and features 'top 10 lists' including the worst offenders and top spammers.

Quotes from Tim Leisman, CEO, BorderWare Technologies:

-- "Image spam was only the first wave of how spammers are trying to beat current technologies."

-- "By utilizing our content aware behavioural reputation service, BorderWare is kept alert to any changes in the attack vectors used by spammers. This allows us to rapidly introduce solutions to combat any new attacks."

Please contact Beth O'Connell (beth_oconnell@lpp.com) to arrange for further quotes regarding this announcement or to request an interview with a BorderWare executive.

Multimedia:

-- Download: traditional press release

-- Download: BorderWare whitepaper on Image Spam

-- View examples of Image Spam in PDFs

-- See BSN's Global Threat Map

-- Check out a BSN Domain Reputation report

-- See a snapshot of BSN's real-time Threat Dashboard

Relevant Links:

BSN Web Portal: http://bsn.borderware.com

BorderWare: http://www.borderware.com

About BorderWare Security Network (BSN)

BorderWare Security Network (BSN) -- a cornerstone of the BorderWare Security Platform -- is the first and only service to analyze the reputation and behavior of IP addresses, domains and senders across Email, IM and Web -- immediately at the perimeter with a zero false-positive rate. BSN detects potentially compromised or infected traffic based on 30+ metrics from over 8,000 BorderWare customer systems by proactively gathering detailed data about attacks, supplementing industry standard data, providing information from over half a billion sources.

About BorderWare

BorderWare Technologies is a global vendor of messaging security, privacy and compliance solutions. BorderWare has been protecting enterprises of all sizes and governments worldwide for over 13 years against the risks and threats associated with today's converging Internet threat landscape across Email, IM, Web, VoIP and the network perimeter. BorderWare has developed partnerships and affiliations with some of the industry's most prominent companies in Internet infrastructure, security and messaging including CommVault, Ericsson, F5 Networks, FaceTime Communications, Kaspersky Labs, LignUp, Marconi, McAfee, Mitel, Natural Convergence, PostX, PGP, RSA Security, Radware, snom technology, Sun Microsystems, SurfControl, Symantec, Ubiquity, Utimaco, Zfone. Thousands of customers worldwide have selected BorderWare for its superior security, high performance and lower total cost of ownership.