Lock Your Gates

KS Ganesh, senior manager, IT, Syndicate Bank

Syndicate Bank has implemented an IT system that includes a robust security
system as well. The bank has installed its own servers at its Mumbai-based data
center and is secured by firewall. In addition, routers have been installed in
the data center that are further supported with anti-virus and anti-spam
solutions. Moreover, the hardware too is protected by firewall which implies
that in case it encounters any unknown or suspicious IP address, the system
checks its entry at the access point and does not allow the traffic to flow.

This entire system is very effective and successfully bars any threats or
spam at the entry point itself before it can intrude in our main data server,
explains KS Ganesh, senior manager, IT, Syndicate Bank. To further fight the
spam anomalies, there is a strict authentication process installed for the
banks user access in order to prevent unwarranted users, minimizing spam
attacks. The system was installed eight years back. We have also installed
intrusion detection system to further strengthen the system. So far it has been
very successful in preventing any security threat or spam invasion barring a few
instances of internal frauds, signs off Ganesh.

Agnelo Rodrigues, manager, IT, Adfactors PR

Being into the business of public relations and media, Adfactors PR is prone
to spam attacks. Keeping this in mind, the organization implemented an open
source spam assessing software to deal with email spams.

Based on the attributes available within the software, we have zeroed in on
a set of rules that the application should perform with all emails, says Agnelo
Rodrigues, manager, IT, Adfactors PR. The installed application checks the
senders email address and the IP address from where it has been sent, and
verifies the same, checks the domain and authenticates the senders email
address. After all these components are thoroughly verified and validated, it
assesses the header of the subject line, header of the sender ID and domain, and
recipient header. Then, the content is checked and ranked by scanning HTML or
other attachments, scripting, keywords, etc. If the email scores below five, it
is allowed to get delivered to the inbox of the recipient. However, if it scores
around five, its considered a spam and is sent to the spam folder.

S Sreenivasan, VP, product development, Sulekha.com

The popularity of Sulekha.com as a classified ad portal has earned the
website a high visitor hit rate. The flip side, however, is that it is a darling
for spams, crawlers, and related threats. The IT team of the organization, lead
by S Sreenivasan, VP, product development, therefore devised a spam security
management solution.

Sulekha faces spam threats that arise due to various commercial activities
happening through its website. Our website includes various commercial
applications that are vulnerable to spam attacks. The users post a lot of
classified ads which sometimes contain malicious components, informs
Sreenivasan. To deal with website spam threats, Sulekha has set a three-step
verification process. To ensure the postings have been made by valid users only,
the company has implemented a mobile number verification system. In addition,
we have also developed an intelligent keyword analysis application that scans
the texts and identifies keywords and text patterns used in spam, he says.
Periodical manual review of the posts is also being undertaken. Protection has
been applied at the network access point wherein firewall and IP analyzer tool
has been installed. For its internal email system Sulekha is using MS Exchange
spam filter software.

Piyali Guha

piyalig@cybermedia.co.in