Products Overview   SpamRepellent   OEM SDK Solutions   Products Brochure (.pdf)   Mail-Filters has Image-Based Spam Licked!!! Mail-Filters has long been recognized in the industry as providing best-of-breed technology for spam and phishing filtering. Specifically, Mail-Filters' technology consistently has the:     - Highest catch-rates of spam (95+%)     - Lowest false-positive rates (less than 1 in 1,000,000)     - Fastest throughput (5,000+ msgs/sec)     - Most comprehensive cover (over 30 languages) These claims aren't made just by Mail-Filters, but more importantly from:     - Independent test results     - Industry analyst     - Customers     - OEM Partners Recently spammers began a pervasive use of a technique known as image-based spam. This includes the use of graphic images that have been embedded into the message as well as graphic images and PDF files that are attached to the messages.  Although the Mail-Filters technology has largerly been immune to this new technique (unlike most anti-spam filtering solutions), Mail-Filters has once again lead the industry by introducing a filtering solution specifically designed for detecting image-based spam. RETIRE for Image Based Spam compliments Mail-Filters STAR Engine and Bullet Signatures to detect both image-based and text-based spam without causing false-positives or creating any latency. Test Results The results of a two month long study, in a live data-center environment (to avoid skewed results that a lab environment creates) testing the Mail-Filters' technology (including RETIRE for Image Based Spam) against the leading competitive solutions showed that Mail-Filters consistently caught over 96% of all image-based spam while the nearest competitive solution never caught more than 65% (and usually significantly less) of the image-based spam. In addition, Mail-Filters created no false-positives and was able to filter over 5,000 message per second. Why The Competition Can't Detect Image-Based Spam Spammers are constantly developing new tricks and techniques to defeat the spam filters that are being used by consumers, enterprises, and service providers. In 2006, spammers began using a technique known as image-based spam. Initially, all images used in a particular campaign were the same. This approach created significant trouble for heuristic-based technologies since there was no text (other than what appeared in the graphic image) to read. This is an example of a simple spam image that presents the spammers message with no text actually in the body of the email. Spammers then began to develop technology that would change a single pixel within an image; thus making each image within a campaign unique. This approach defeated the hash-based type of technologies since each hash created for an image was uniquely different from another resulting in each image appearing to be new and unknown as a spam message. These two examples show how spammers can change a few pixels in an image with lines, dots, colors, etc. to effectively change the image enough to defeat hash-based approaches. Note the dashes and dots around the text and how they differ between the two images. Spammers also began using bots, trojan horses, and other forms of malware, on a more wide-spread basis, by infecting individual PCs. These infected PCs are then used as spamming machines without the individual users realizing that anything is wrong. This approach made anti-spam filters that utilize technologies designed to monitor message traffic from specific sources useless in combating image-based spam campaigns since only a few messages are sent from any particular source. In an effort to detect these new forms of spam, anti-spam vendors have explored the use of OCR technologies (as well as other types of technologies) that would examine the text content that the image displays. In response, spammers utilized a variety of techniques with each image that rendered the OCR approaches ineffective. This included a use of both foreground and background colors, distorting the text, etc. Equally problematic as a realistic solution is the fact that the techniques being employed by the anti-spam vendors has introduced significant overhead requirements and unacceptable latency issues. This spam image shows how spammers are using a variety of foreground and background colors, various font-sizes and distortion to defeat OCR type approaches. In early 2007 spammers modified their technique from sending embedded or attached graphic images to sending attached PDF files. Unlike graphic images that can be scanned using an OCR type technique (albeit not very effectively as described above) or a hash-based type technique (which has also proven to be very uneffective), PDF files have been virtually immune to these techiques and undetected by anti-spam filters. However, Mail-Filters' anti-spam filter has been able to detect and remove the PDF form of spam messages from the moment the first outbreak occured thanks to the RETIRE System (see below for more details). Mail-Filters' anti-spam technology continues to successful detect and eliminate PDF spam without any new technology being introduced to the STAR Engine!!! This example show how a spammer delivers his/her message within a PDF attachment. Why Mail-Filters Can Detect Image-Based Spam While Mail-Filters Bullet-Signatures and STAR Engine has always performed significantly better than competitive solutions with image-based spam, and was largely immune to the above mentioned spammer tricks and techniques, Mail-Filters felt it critical to develop a new technology to compliment its existing solution. This new technology was specifically designed to combat image-based spam and overcome the techniques used by spammers as highlighted above. The result is the REal Time Incident REsponse (RETIRE) System for Image Based Spam. RETIRE, along with Bullet Signatures and the STAR Engine has raised the bar in the ability to detect all forms of spam including image-based spam. Click Here to learn more about Mail-Filters Best-of-Breed anti-spam/anti-phishing technology. Click Here to explore Mail-Filters OEM SDK product offerings for:     - Hardware Vendors     - Software Vendors     - Service Providers Enterprise Customers (businesses, not-for-profit organizations, ISPs, etc) can get more information about Mail-Filters hosted solution SpamRepellent.

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