We all know about the nuisance of spam email. But from the IT administrator’s point of view, ‘nuisance’ is hardly the word for it; menace would be a more appropriate term. The quantity of these messages has been rising exponentially in the last few years, with the average now being one spam message in every 2.18 emails.

For the end user, monitoring and deleting these messages is time consuming and demoralising. The UK business sector loses thousands of hours of employee productivity each year to this problem, and all evidence suggests that things are set to get worse.

The problem does not stop here. Internet connections are being stretched to their limits by having to download all this junk mail. The bandwidth that these messages hog frequently forces customers to upgrade their links to the outside world, at great expense. Furthermore, email has become one of the primary means of distributing viruses, and the monitoring and management of anti-virus software can use up too much valuable employee time. Many of these messages contain lewd or inappropriate content, and organisations are becoming increasingly concerned about the legality of storing such materials (even unknowingly) on company mail servers.

Dean & Hilton can recommend and install a managed mail filtering solution that will all but eliminate these messages. By putting the control of what they receive back into the hands of the user, all the problems mentioned above can be mitigated. Known spam mails can be immediately deleted, and suspect messages can be quarantined – stored off-site until someone checks their validity. When confirmed as spam, all further copies will be automatically blocked.

This system can check outgoing mails as well. If spam is originating from inside the organisation (through viral infection or employee misuse) these too can be blocked, and the relevant administrator notified. This protects your company’s status, both legally and in terms of your good reputation.