HostMySite.com Selects Barracuda Networks To Help Combat Outbound Spam For More Than 50,000 Customer Domains

Barracuda Networks, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise-class spam firewall solutions, today announced that its award-winning Barracuda Spam Firewall - Outbound product has successfully solved outbound spam abuse at HostMySite.com, a leading Web hosting provider for small and medium-sized businesses. In addition HostMySite.com has implemented the Barracuda Spam Firewall to solve incoming email spam and virus problems.

Mountain View, Calif., and Newark, Del. (PRWEB) June 9, 2006 -- Barracuda Networks, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise-class spam firewall solutions, today announced that its award-winning Barracuda Spam Firewall - Outbound product has successfully solved outbound spam abuse at HostMySite.com, a leading Web hosting provider for small and medium-sized businesses. In addition HostMySite.com has implemented the Barracuda Spam Firewall to solve incoming email spam and virus problems.

HostMySite.com is committed to, and its business depends on, providing reliable email service for its customers. In late 2005 HostMySite.com administrators found that several of its 50 email servers were being overtaken by spammers who were using many of HostMySite.com's 50,000 domains to run illegitimate email through, often without the domain owners' knowledge. As a result of these rogue operations, nearly half of the email that was sent from the HostMySite.com email servers was spam.

"We send about 75,000 legitimate emails per day per server, so to discover that another 70,000 spam messages per server were also getting through was simply unacceptable," said Neil Heuer, CTO of HostMySite.com. "Our reputation as well as the reputations of many of our customers was in jeopardy. We had to quickly find a solution that would turn the tide back in our favor and Barracuda Networks helped us accomplish this."

Since the spam appeared to be coming from the HostMySite.com's email servers, the company was frequently placed on Real-time Black Lists (RBLs) - resulting in the threat of legitimate customer emails being blocked. In February 2006 after extensive testing, HostMySite.com determined that six Barracuda Spam Firewall 600 - Outbound models and two Barracuda Spam Firewall 400s would have the scalability and capacity to handle the volume of email that passes through its servers each day. In just three months, the staff has already seen a dramatic increase in the amount of spam that is stopped before it leaves the HostMySite.com network.

"We have blocked over 30 million pieces of spam from being sent from our email servers," said Heuer. "This is an almost 50 percent increase from what we were able to stop on our own before using the Barracuda Spam Firewall solutions. Needless to say, we are very pleased with the performance of the Barracuda Spam Firewall - Outbound solution."

Using a powerful combination of outbound keyword and regular expression scanning, outbound whitelisting, as well as several advanced detection techniques, the Barracuda Spam Firewall - Outbound solutions help organizations and ISPs to ensure that all outgoing email is legitimate and virus-free.

HostMySite.com implemented clusters of three Barracuda Spam Firewall 600 - Outbound appliances at each of its two data centers. Each of the HostMySite.com's 50 email servers - which can hold 1,000 domains each - was then set up to relay email messages via the Barracuda Spam Firewall - Outbound cluster at its own data center.

"With the continued proliferation and sophistication of zombie spam operations, and because of the high email volumes that ISPs deliver they often become unsuspecting targets," said Dean Drako, president and CEO of Barracuda Networks. "No organization wants to be the source of spam or viruses, and ISPs are becoming more aware of steps that can be taken to prevent this from occurring on their networks. The Barracuda Spam Firewall - Outbound is a powerful and affordable solution that can help ISPs regain control and prevent outbound email abuse."

About the Barracuda Spam Firewall
The Barracuda Spam Firewall is available in six models and supports from 1,000 to 30,000 active users with no per user licensing fees. The Barracuda Spam Firewall can be installed in front of the email server in typically less than five minutes and is automatically updated hourly to block new forms of spam and viruses. Its architecture leverages open source spam and virus solutions in conjunction with ten defense layers: denial of service and security protection, IP block list, rate control, virus check with archive decompression, proprietary virus check, user specified rules, spam fingerprint check, Intent Analysis, spam rule-based scoring, and Bayesian analysis. In addition, the entire Barracuda Spam Firewall line features simultaneous inbound and outbound email filtering with the inclusion of sophisticated outbound email filtering techniques such as rate controls, domain restrictions, user authentication (SASL), keyword and attachment blocking, dual layer virus blocking and remote user support for outbound email filtering. The Barracuda Spam Firewall's layered approach minimizes the processing of each email, which yields the performance required to process millions of messages per day. Unlike software solutions, the Barracuda Spam Firewall reduces the load placed on the email server by off-loading both spam and virus filtering. Barracuda Networks also offers the Energize Update subscription service to automatically update the Barracuda Spam Firewall with the latest spam rules and virus definitions.

About the Barracuda Spam Firewall - Outbound
For larger organizations seeking a separate and more comprehensive approach to outbound email filtering, Barracuda Networks offers the Barracuda Spam Firewall - Outbound product line. The Barracuda Spam Firewall - Outbound is a mail transfer agent (MTA) that utilizes sophisticated email and policy management techniques for the protection of outbound email only. Available in five models, the Barracuda Spam Firewall - Outbound supports up to 30,000 active users and 1.5 million emails per day. In addition to the best-of-breed techniques utilized for outbound filtering in the full Barracuda Spam Firewall line, the Barracuda Spam Firewall - Outbound also offers quarantine functionality, email compliance filtering for corporate policies and government regulations such as HIPAA and Sarbanes Oxley, outbound keyword and regular expression scanning, and outbound whitelisting to ensure that all outgoing email is legitimate and virus-free. With no per user licensing fees, the Barracuda Spam Firewall - Outbound is the most affordable solution for businesses of all sizes that require a more comprehensive solution for outbound email protection.

About HostMySite.com
Founded in 1997, HostMySite.com is a privately held provider of affordable web hosting services. With a combination of sophisticated hosting technology and applied business knowledge, HostMySite.com provides individuals, small businesses, and large corporations with affordable web hosting solutions and managed dedicated servers supported by an unwavering commitment to customer service. HostMySite.com service includes 24x7 customer support through toll-free telephone, e-mail, and live online chat. The company is based in Newark, DE and can be reached at www.HostMySite.com.

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