Elron Adds To Spam Arsenal

Message Inspector Version 4 was designed mainly to address customer problems with spam, but it also provides virus protection and content management to protect confidential information, said executives at Elron, Burlington, Mass.

The software provides enterprises with a "cornucopia of different tools" to combat spam, according to Lee Brooks, Elron product manager. The tools include an improved heuristics engine that scans messages for more than 2,500 spamlike attributes, as well as the ability for users to configure the aggressiveness of the engine and a database of signatures to help identify spam.

Another feature allows end users to create their own lists for acceptable and unacceptable e-mail sources.

Message Inspector also features new administrative capabilities, including full LDAP support, hierarchical administration and a full quarantine-management system that allows multiple reviewers to handle questionable messages in different ways. On the content-management side, Message Inspector can scan for Social Security or credit card numbers to prevent leakage of sensitive data.

Peter Illari, sales and marketing manager at Computer Systems Resource, a West Chester, Pa.-based solution provider, said customers are clamoring for antispam solutions and his company has won some large enterprise accounts with Message Inspector.

"We sell them on the Message Inspector product, and we're able to sell them the other services we provide. We do installation of the product," he said.

Pricing for Message Inspector ranges from $7 to $40 per user, based on the number of users.