Trend Micro Takes On SPAM With New Suite

With the upcoming release of InterScan Messaging Server Suite (IMSS), Trend Micro strives to provide solution providers with effective tools to battle spam and protect users from increasing ills associated with e-mail, ranging from script bombs to worm-bearing messages.

IMSS leverages the company's substantial investment in intellectual capital built during the development of complex antivirus and security solutions.

Solution providers familiar with Trend Micro's products will be comfortable with IMSS, which has a similar look and feel. The screens, documentation and installation follow the well-thought-out design of Trend Micro's other products. Given the vast array of antispam solutions on the market, solution providers may wonder what IMSS brings to the table.

Trend Micro's IMSS integrates robust antivirus technology with e-mail policy control and wraps those capabilities around an e-mail proxy server. No e-mails are able to get in or leave without being thoroughly examined for viruses, appropriate content and the likelihood of being a spam message.

Test Center engineers installed the latest beta of IMSS on a Hewlett-Packard server running Microsoft Small Business Server 2003, which was configured to use Exchange 2003 and connected to the Internet via broadband. Outbound SMTP was handled by the broadband provider, while inbound e-mail was handled by Exchange 2003 configured to use a fully qualified domain name.

Installation of the product was straightforward, but basic familiarity of the subject network was needed. Whoever installs the product will need to know the IP address of the outbound SMTP server, e-mail domain name and various other settings. In practice, IMSS works as a proxy server,all e-mail is routed through IMSS. That can induce some latency, but the benefits far outweigh the latency encountered. First off, the reduction in spam can arguably save users from hours and hours of lost productivity, which more than makes up for the few seconds lost each day because of latency.

IMSS examines e-mail messages in a staged approach: First, a message passes through Trend Micro's 32-bit virus scan engine using a process called pattern matching. The scan engine looks for file patterns that match known viruses. If a virus is found, the product notifies the recipient and either cleans or quarantines the suspect file. Microsoft Office files go through further scrutiny, using Trend Micro's MacroTrap process, which examines those files for the all-too-common macro viruses and malicious scripts found in Office-based documents today. Solution providers will need to keep virus signature files up to date to ensure effectiveness; the update process can be automated.

After all messages are checked for viruses, they're passed off to the content management portion of IMSS. That process is the key to battling spam and other e-mail-related problems. Trend Micro leverages policies for content filtering, and those policies allow complete control of e-mail beyond spam management. Solution providers can script policies that prevent confidential data from being transmitted or create policies that identify unwanted messages. Policies clearly define what is acceptable use of company e-mail and what is not.

But the primary reason for using IMSS is controlling spam. While policies can offer some protection from spam, the real answer to effectively fighting it lies with automation. IMSS employs complex heuristics to identify spam. Every message is examined for phrases or content that fits the profile of a spam message, and anti-spam heuristics can be tuned to filter based on content and determine how aggressively the antispam filtering should be applied. Administrators have several options for handling e-mail identified as spam. They can add the word "spam" to the subject line, redirect the suspect e-mail or quarantine the e-mail. That flexibility lends itself well to businesses of most any size.

All things considered, Trend Micro does a good job of wrapping antispam technology around content control and antivirus technology. IMSS is suitable for new installations and for users looking to upgrade an existing Trend Micro antivirus solution.

CHANNEL PROGRAM SNAPSHOTS
>TREND MICRO INTERSCAN MESSAGING SECURITY SUITE
PRICE: $2,976 for 100-seat license
DISTRIBUTORS: Ingram Micro, Synnex, Tech Data
TECH RATING:

CHANNEL RATING:

CHANNEL OVERVIEW: Trend Micro, Cupertino, Calif., offers VARs training, account management assistance and partnering on events. The vendor sells entirely through the channel and offers both pre- and post-sales support, as well as a help desk. Trend Micro considers its reseller council critical to its success and also offers a partnering program that matches solution providers to specific jobs. The company also promotes joint sales efforts between its resellers and distributors.

Note: Vendors can earn up to five stars for technical merit and five for their channel program. If the average of these two scores is four stars or greater, the product earns CRN Test Center Recommended status.