Financial services firms embrace email security services
Financial services firms embrace email security services
Financial services firms are proving to be the widest adopters of email security services, according to managed email security services provider MessageLabs, which has seen the financial services side of its customer base grow into its leading vertical market.
QBE Group, Bank of New York and Commerzbank AG are among 400 financial firms using MessageLabs' services to protect against viruses, spam and other unwanted content.
A key factor in the growth of this vertical market is the assistance that such security providers can offer to comply with regulations imposed by various governments and regulatory bodies around the world.
"Institutional and retail financial firms take every precaution to protect their infrastructures, human assets and customers from viruses that can corrupt customer records and impact mission critical systems," said Mark Sunner, Chief Technology Officer at MessageLabs. "With mandated electronic communication storage and auditing requirements, these companies are also looking for ways to eliminate spam - which now accounts for more than 50 percent of email traffic - and reap the cost savings gained by reducing spam-related bandwidth, storage and processing costs."
QBE Group signed up for MessageLabs' managed email security service after being infected by the BugBear virus, despite employing a comprehensive anti-virus suite across its desktops, servers and mail gateways. The insurer's systems were shut down for two days and took several more days to recover.
According to research firm IDC, viruses and worms continue to be the most common threat facing corporations today. A recent IDC survey found that 82 percent of respondents have experienced attacks. Many organisations, including financial firms, are increasingly adopting a "layered security" approach to combat viruses and spam, singular threats that are now combining to be twice as effective. This layered approach includes content filtering and proactive techniques such as behaviour analysis and heuristics. It is a strategy that is expected to help drive the anti-virus software market alone to $4.4 billion by 2007.
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