Commtouch's Outbound Spam System

Commtouch has introduced a new system, based on the company's Recurrent Pattern Detection technology, designed to help service providers identify sources of spam within their networks. The Commtouch Outbound Spam Protection (OSP) system has two primary functions: a) it blocks spam emanating from service provider networks, and b) it rapidly identifies the sender of the offending content.

OSP offers several advantages over what the vast majority of service providers are doing today, namely blocking Port 25, imposing limits on the number of outbound emails that can be sent per hour or per day, or using traditional spam-filtering technology on outbound messages. Using OSP, a service provider can pinpoint the source of compromised computers or Webmail accounts without penalizing legitimate users, and it does so with reportedly very low false positives.

While this is a new offering, it appears that it may be a significant step forward in helping service providers to address the quite serious problem of zombie computers in their network without having to use the rather heavy-handed approaches that many employ today.