AppRiver's SecureTide Keeps E-mail Flowing Spam-Free

Part of the problem stems from the new tricks used by spammers to fool antispam solutions. Many of those tricks are created and enhanced daily, which makes daily updating of antispam solutions an ever-increasing requirement. But those updating chores can add to operation costs and chew away at the bottom line for both solution providers and their customers.

The answer to that dilemma lies with managed services. By shifting the burden from an installed piece of hardware or software over to a remote system, solution providers can eliminate most of the overhead associated with antispam technology. What's more, service-based offerings can create ongoing revenue and are automatically updated constantly.

Gulf Breeze, Fla.-based AppRiver offers SecureTide as a managed service solution for controlling spam and other undesired content. What's more, AppRiver is looking for partners to resell the technology, which can scale from the smallest of businesses to the largest of enterprises. AppRiver is basically an e-mail redirection service—simply put, all of an organization's incoming and outgoing e-mail passes through AppRiver's service and is filtered based on numerous adjustable criteria to protect companies from the dangers of incoming and outgoing spam.

The benefits of the service don't end with spam—the product's filtering can prevent virus outbreaks, stop phishing schemes and filter out unauthorized attachments, all of which help to speed up e-mail, while reducing storage needs.

SecureTide is billed as a monthly per-mailbox service, which helps to keep startup and maintenance costs to a minimum while offering partners a margin as high as 35 percent on recurring revenue. Prices hover around $3 per mailbox per month, with larger deployments benefiting from discounted rates as low as $1.75 per mailbox per month. Solution providers can choose to bill their customers directly or have AppRiver handle the billing and earn a commission. Those options are based upon the partner level.

Administrators can set up SecureTide in a matter of minutes and then tune the filtering to block an encompassing list of problems. The product offers a comprehensive feature set, including antivirus filtering, policy-compliance filtering (checking outgoing e-mail for confidential information), adult-content filtering, instant-message security, e-mail management (reporting, archiving, disclaimers, etc.), e-mail relay, secure e-mail (encryption) and attachment handling (deconstruction and analysis of attachments). The antispam engine uses proprietary technology, which AppRiver claims has a 97 percent accuracy rate. Antispam techniques include keyword and proximity search in subject line and body, keyword search using pattern matching or heuristic analysis, header analysis, message format analysis and statistical analysis (including Bayesian filtering). It also includes a blacklist of known bad e-mail and IP addresses, whitelist, open proxy lists, use of realtime black-hole lists, DNS verification, call-back with SMTP-level verification, challenge-response sender authentication, rate-limiting, honeypot accounts and an end-user complaint system that aggregates complaints from users to formulate a spam level.

The comprehensiveness of options doesn't end with just identifying and filtering services. Administrators also can control the notification process using several customizable options including message header and subject line tagging, quarantining in a per-system quarantine, quarantining in a per-user quarantine, deleted, warning notification with the spam text included as an attachment, returned to sender, notification that spam has arrived, notification of deleted spam, attachments removed, delivery delayed, spam forwarded to another addressee and content changed to plain text.

The product's Web-based interface makes setup and maintenance a snap—filter updates can be programmed to happen every several minutes, ensuring the best protection. But the real beauty of SecureTide is the set-it-and-forget-it style of deployment, creating a revenue opportunity for solution providers that requires little management.

AppRiver's channel program has been around for three years and offers comprehensive partner support, without any excessive requirements. AppRiver offers four different programs to accommodate partners: Reseller, Agent, Consultant and OEM. The company offers comprehensive training and support for all levels and allows the higher levels of Reseller and OEM to self-brand the service. Agents and consultants work based upon commission and have a much lower initial time investment than the higher levels. AppRiver leaves it up to the partners to select what level best fits their business models.

For those looking to get out from under the appliance and software mail maintenance conundrum, SecureTide offers the answer. While a solution provider may not be able to just sit on the beach and collect checks, AppRiver's solution and partner programs may just help to build that dream.