IT security and control firm Sophos today announced the addition
of Sophos eXtensible Lists (SXL) to its Email Security and Control
solutions portfolio. SXL is an online look-up system that
dramatically accelerates the distribution of anti-spam
intelligence, moving away from traditional scheduled updates to a
real-time system that provides quicker response to new and emerging
spam campaigns. Sophos customers will receive this industry
leading, rapid detection and deployment capability
automatically.
Rather than requiring the anti-spam engine to rely solely on
local data when checking messages for spam, SXL enables real-time
access to a wider range of information. It contains current and
historical anti-spam intelligence such as IP addresses, URIs,
message checksums, image/document fingerprints, etc. If the local
anti-spam engine cannot conclusively determine if a message is
spam, it can now reference the SXL database (using the DNS
protocol) to check for any additional information that might be
available from SophosLabs, but not yet downloaded.
A hosted database service, SXL works in conjunction with
Sophos's email gateway solutions - Sophos Email Appliances and
PureMessage for Exchange and UNIX - to provide the most effective
security and control available today.
SXL possesses several key industry differentiators including the
following:
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Wider range of spam data
SXL contains information on sender IP addresses, URIs, checksums,
image/document fingerprints, etc. Most other anti-spam solutions
only offer sender IP information. Therefore, the Sophos solution is
far more effective in identifying and isolating spam messages based
on a wider array of criteria.
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Smarter server selection process
The first time a Sophos anti-spam engine attempts to contact the
SXL database, it queries all locations and automatically chooses
the servers that responds first. It then defaults to this location
for up to ten minutes. After ten minutes, the systems re-tests all
locations to ensure that it always chooses the fastest-responding
SXL server, ensuring it has the most up to date protection
information. Most competitors rely on random server connections
rather than constantly seeking out the fastest responses, which can
cause lags in their spam protection.
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Better local database management
SXL provides access to a larger repository of anti-spam
intelligence than possible on a system using only locally hosted
data.
"Spam continues to put significant strain on corporate networks.
Spammers and spam techniques continue to get smarter and in order
to guarantee protection, detection methods must follow suit," said
Jeff Epstein, a gateway security expert for Sophos. "With the
addition of SXL, we're offering our customers the faster, more
comprehensive spam detection they require for effective spam
prevention."
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.