Multilayered spam prevention for maximum effectiveness

Proofpoint Spam Detection provides robust, yet simple to manage, protection from spam by combining the most effective spam prevention technologies into one cohesive, easy-to-manage system. Proofpoint's multilayered spam defense combines connection analysis, local and global reputation, and advanced statistical content analysis techniques. Proofpoint Spam Detection inspects hundreds of thousands of attributes in incoming email messages-including sender IP addresses, message envelope headers and structure, image attributes, and sender reputation data as well as unstructured content in the body of messages-to accurately classify spam with extremely high confidence.

Proofpoint Spam Detection provides protection across multiple layers to eliminate traffic spikes caused by spam attacks and to ensure that end-user mailboxes stay spam free:

• Connection Level Analysis
  The Proofpoint Email Firewall™ provides a stateful, first line of defense against spam by testing numerous connection-level data points including DNS, MX record verification, SPF, recipient verification, Dynamic Reputation™ information and optional netMLX data. Proofpoint Dynamic Reputation technology constantly monitors SMTP connections at the IP address level, looking for suspect or malicious activity. Based on this analysis, SMTP rate control is used to automatically block or throttle malicious connections, providing outstanding protection against directory harvest and denial-of-service attacks while shedding 30% to more than 80% of inbound connection load.
• Contextual, Lexical and Image-based Analysis
  Proofpoint MLX technology examines the content and context of messages using structural tests, English and foreign language inspection, pornography detection, malicious (spyware/phishing/pharming) URL detection, targeted rules for detecting phish attacks, image analysis, reputation analysis and any custom policies you have defined. Proofpoint's machine learning technology is uniquely suited to recognizing and filtering spam across many different languages. With full support for double-byte languages, Proofpoint MLX provides outstanding protection against even hard-to-detect Asian language spam. Proprietary image analysis techniques included in Proofpoint MLX identify image-based spam that other solutions fail to catch.
• End-user Configuration
  Checks personal safe and blocked lists for valid and invalid senders.
• Administrator Customization
  Checks global safe and blocked lists and any custom-created spam rules; global lists override end-user lists.

Proofpoint MLX provides complete confidence in defeating spammers

Proofpoint MLX technology goes far beyond the capabilities of competing anti-spam solutions. MLX is far superior to simple statistical techniques such as Bayesian filters—and it doesn't rely on signatures or fingerprinting techniques, which are easily fooled by spammers. It turbocharges traditional techniques with advanced machine learning technologies such as logistic regression and information gain analysis. The result is the highest spam detection rates in the industry.

How MLX works for spam detection

• The process begins at the Proofpoint Attack Response Center, where tools developed by Proofpoint scientists and engineers analyze millions of spam messages and distill them into hundreds of thousands of spam attributes-exposing the underlying characteristics and emerging techniques of current and future spam.
• These attributes are fed into sophisticated, machine learning algorithms such as logistic regression and information gain analysis. The attributes are dynamically balanced so the system understands how important any particular attribute is during the final message classification process.
• This information is then packaged in the form of the Proofpoint MLX Engine and automatically delivered to Proofpoint customers.
• Locally, the Spam Detection module examines multiple structural and content layers, extracting attributes from each incoming email. Then advanced machine learning algorithms compute a final spam score that dictates what action to take.
• Proofpoint's Attack Response Center continually trains the MLX Engine based on new attacks and feedback from deployed Proofpoint systems, constantly retuning for maximum accuracy.

Proofpoint MLX technology can also be enhanced with advanced connection management features, powered by Proofpoint's netMLX global reputation database. See the Dynamic Reputation and netMLX page for more information.

Learn More about Proofpoint MLX

For more information about how Proofpoint's patent-pending machine learning techniques provide outstanding protection against spam, download a free whitepaper about Proofpoint MLX by visiting: http://www.proofpoint.com/id/mlxwp/index.php

Enterprise Spam Detection

Only Proofpoint's Spam Detection module addresses the unique needs of large enterprise customers. Unlike repurposed hosted or consumer solutions-or hard-to-manage, client-side software deployments-Proofpoint's solution:

Proofpoint Spam Detection:

• Eliminates spam at the gateway
• Is flexible and adaptable to corporate characteristics and industry terms
• Meets your enterprise's messaging strategy and scaling requirements
• Allows you to easily administer and enforce global, group, and individual spam policies to meet the unique needs of different email users in your organization
• Delivers extremely low false positive rates and extensive end-user controls ensure that your mission-critical business communications are always available
• Is continually and automatically updated to provide maximum protection against even the newest and most evasive forms of spam, including image-based and foreign-language spam

Outstanding End-user Control

Proofpoint provides end-users with easy, "self service" control over their personal anti-spam preferences through features including:

• Personalized quarantines and quarantine digest reports
• Personalized safelists and blocklists
• Web-based quarantine and profile administration
• Ability to opt in and out of different spam policies (as permitted by administrator configurable settings)

Outback Steakhouse

Restaurant chain Outback Steakhouse grills spam and viruses with the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway anti-spam appliance. Outback also protects sensitive customer information in outbound email using Proofpoint's Regulatory Compliance and Secure Messaging modules.
Download outbound email security case study (357k)

Mary Kay Inc.

One of the world's largest cosmetics manufacturers protects 3600 employee and 600,000 sales representative inboxes from spam and viruses with the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway. Learn how Proofpoint's superior anti-spam, anti-virus, message handling and throttling capabilities provided the perfect solution.
Download anti-spam solution case study (278k pdf)

Grand Valley State University

GVSU's previous anti-spam appliance wasn't making the grade, so they switched to Proofpoint to protect more than 20,000 faculty, staff and student mailboxes from spam and viruses. GVSU's email admins say that Proofpoint is "miles ahead" and saves "a ton of administration time."
Download anti-spam solution case study (116k pdf)

CUNY (City University of New York)

CUNY uses Proofpoint Protection Server software to protect more than 200,000 faculty, staff and student mailboxes from spam and viruses across 19 different campuses.
Download messaging security solution case study (126k pdf)

National Instruments

Test and measurement technology leader National Instruments uses the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway anti-spam appliance to protect thousands of end-user mailboxes-in more than 44 countries worldwide-from both spam and viruses with 99% effectiveness.
Download anti-spam software case study (100k pdf)

Find many more anti-spam software and anti-spam appliance case studies in the Resource Center or read about Proofpoint's Dynamic Reputation anti-spam accuracy.