10 questions to ask before you buy an anti‐spam solution WatchGuard® vs. the other guys April 2010 Overview An anti‐spam solution is one of the most important security products you can buy to protect both your network and your company’s productivity. There are a lot of anti‐spam products on the market. How do you select the right product at the right price for your environment? Read this quick guide to the questions you should ask before you pull out your checkbook! 1. Is it “affordable” or just “cheap”? One way manufacturers cut costs is to use extremely cheap components in their appliances, resulting in a high percentage of DOA and defects on arrival, as well as a high failure rate in the field. Another way they make prices look low is to showcase the low‐end models that offer only limited functionality – in reality you’ll have to buy several appliances to do the work, meaning double or triple the cost. All WatchGuard appliances, regardless of model, include our enterprise‐class email security technology. We build every appliance to be a stand‐alone solution, providing not only industry leading spam protection, but data loss prevention and optional email encryption. 2. What’s the real TCO? The other question to ask about price is what is the total cost of ownership. If your anti‐ spam solution requires ongoing management and attention, it means higher costs through the life of the appliance. If the vendor does not offer boxes that are designed to be centrally administered, you’ll spend even more time on spam management instead of other critical IT business initiatives. In some WatchGuard Technologies
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cases you’ll also need to buy a completely separate appliance for administration of inbound and outbound email traffic, in addition to a separate module for reporting. Barracuda requires you to purchase separate boxes for both inbound threat prevention and outbound data loss prevention (which is limited), but each functions in its own administrative silo, requiring you to manage and update them individually. WatchGuard XCS 170, 370 and 570 appliances provide bi‐directional email protection on a single, easy‐to‐use platform, with unified administration, policy management and reporting – reducing the costs and administrative burdens incurred, even when managing multiple appliances in a cluster. 3. Can I buy it from my trusted reseller, or do I have to order it over the phone using a credit card? Some SMB anti‐spam solution vendors try to sell both direct to the customer and through resellers, resulting in a poorly organized reseller network. This means customers are forced to rely on the corporation for pre‐ and post‐purchase support over the phone rather than face to face, even if they are in a completely different geography or time zone. WatchGuard products are sold by a global group of highly trained and dedicated resellers – 15,000 resellers in 120 countries – many of whom offer first line support and know your environment and implementation. You already know and work with our resellers, and you know they will be there to help you. Find your local WatchGuard reseller. 4. My company is growing. Will this appliance be able to keep up? Many anti‐spam solutions are designed to handle only small volumes of users and traffic. Their mail processing systems can’t handle the high‐volume mail loads of an organization with thousands of users or those with significant throughput environments. WatchGuard XCS appliances are designed to handle high volumes of traffic without slowing your network down. With its next‐generation reputation service which blocks over 98% of unwanted spam at the perimeter, the XCS Series frees your network to process legitimate email traffic. And, if your company really does outgrow your current solution, you can easily and economically take advantage of one of our attractive loyalty trade up programs. 5. How easy is it to set this product up? Some anti‐spam vendors claim their products can be up and running in 15 minutes and require no IT expertise. But installation is usually not as simple as they claim, and many have no install wizard available for system setup. Meanwhile, all WatchGuard products come with an easy to use Quick Start Set‐Up Guide (in 7 languages) and extensive product set‐up help. All XCS products include an easy‐to‐use, intuitive web‐based interface. In fact, SCMagazine recently gave the XCS 770 a 5‐star review and stated: “Setup for the XCS was a breeze and we were up and running in no time. The web‐based interface was incredibly easy to navigate.” WatchGuard Technologies
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6. What kind of support is available once I have this thing up and running? Buyers should be careful to select products that offer solid, well‐trained, 24/7 tech support for their mission‐critical security products. Barracuda support is reported to be lacking in depth and users have reported that they rely on user forums for most of their product support. WatchGuard employs a group of highly trained support specialists, available 24/7, to support our products and help our customers. In addition, we offer comprehensive product guides and an online knowledge base available to you from anywhere, anytime you need it to help you set up, run and troubleshoot your appliance and services. 7. How many appliances will I have to buy to get complete protection? Most solutions are sold by functionality and the SMB models in most product lines have substantially less capability. Important features such as LDAP access, end user controls, and on‐box spam quarantines are not available on other SMB solutions, forcing you to move up to more expensive systems just to get the basic functionality your business needs. For instance, to get a fully functional Barracuda system, a user would have to pay approximately $10,000 for a properly equipped Model 600. WatchGuard offers 5 different models with increasing capacity and functions to meet the needs of businesses from 500 to 10,000 and more users. 8. Does it provide automatic, up‐to‐the‐minute security? Will your security solution need constant fine tuning? Or can you set it and forget it? If it provides a means for automated and constant self‐updating, so that it is always aware of the latest threats, you’ll get better security and reduce your administration costs. Many anti‐spam solutions on the market rely on a 1st generation (at best) reputation service, which in turn depends on RBLs (real‐time block lists) that provide a simple yes/no result for legitimacy of an email based on sender IP history, acting similar to a credit bureau which makes decisions based on history. But the RBLs are not updated quickly enough to keep up with the increasing volume and purveyors of spam. Depending on how aggressively you set your spam threshold, with a simple RBL, you’ll either get a low catch rate or a high false positive rate. If your spam solution requires you to constantly adjust and manually add new scanning rules to catch spam (because the engine doesn’t), you’ll further increase false positive rates. Barracuda uses a 1st generation reputation service, Barracuda Central, whose effectiveness is highly questionable. WatchGuard XCS leverages ReputationAuthority, a next‐generation cloud‐based reputation service processing real‐time global intelligence to reject threats at the connection level. Reputation‐
Authority (included at no extra cost) is a powerful first line of defense that blocks over 98% of spam and threats before they enter the network, allowing you to use your processing power for mission‐
critical email messages. Because of its dynamic and intelligent nature, you can trust ReputationAuthority to always be up to date, and not have to worry about constant black and white listing to keep it running. WatchGuard solutions are ready to go, out of the box. 9. Is open source the right solution for your security? When security vendors base their products on open source technology, they are putting your network at risk. Spammers are motivated, highly capable people with a monetary incentive to engineer their way around your security barricades. They can reverse‐engineer open source security WatchGuard Technologies
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technology in order to bypass its detection of spam and threats, making it more open to hacking than proprietary solutions. Barracuda uses SpamAssassin, a well known open source engine. WatchGuard XCS defense‐in‐depth protection is built on its proprietary, never breached, 15+ year proven technology. Proprietary means “private” and that means hackers have a harder time cracking proprietary code, usually opting for an easier target. 10. What features should I look for when selecting an anti‐spam vendor? Will your anti‐spam solution allow you to adjust your spam settings for your unique needs? Some vendors list features like attachment stripping, footer stamping, and body and header keyword search and market them as highly effective spam detection tools. In reality, however, those spam detection offerings do not allow you to set up even simple logic in filters to fine tune your spam settings or the ability to combine multiple actions on messages, resulting in legitimate messages being blocked. Will your anti‐spam solution protect against inbound threats and outbound data loss by scanning attachments? WatchGuard XCS solutions include an Attachment Content Scanning feature, eliminating security gaps for inbound threats and outbound data loss. Here’s a short list of features and functions that should be part of your checklist: Threat Protection Anti‐Spam Anti‐Phishing Anti‐Virus/Anti‐Malware Next‐generation Reputation Services Threat Outbreak Protection Spam Dictionaries Pattern‐based Message Filters Message Quarantine Inbound Attachment Control Data Loss Prevention Pattern‐based Content Rules Compliance Dictionaries Objectionable‐Content Filtering Outbound Attachment Control Outbound Content & Attachment Scanning Document Fingerprinting and Data Classification TLS Encryption Message Level Encryption Management & Reporting On‐box Reporting Messaging Logs Customizable Granular Policies Customizable Granular Reports Centralized Management WatchGuard Technologies
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Redundancy Message Redundancy Geographical Redundancy Queue Replication On‐Demand Clustering Summary Cost is not the only consideration when you are comparing anti‐spam solutions – total cost of ownership, support, ease of set up, next generation security, management/ reporting tools and a rich feature set are just as important. Before you buy, compare products to find the best fit and price for your needs. For more information about WatchGuard’s industry leading XCS Series email security appliances, visit our web site. ADDRESS:
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Since 1996, WatchGuard Technologies has provided reliable, easy to manage security appliances to hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide. WatchGuard’s award‐
winning extensible threat management (XTM) network security solutions combine firewall, VPN, and security services. The extensible content security (XCS) appliances offer content security across email and web, as well as data loss prevention. Both product lines help you meet regulatory compliance requirements including PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOX and GLBA. More than 15,000 partners represent WatchGuard in 120 countries. WatchGuard is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with offices in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit www.watchguard.com. WEB:
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No express or implied warranties are provided for herein. All specifications are subject to change and any expected future products, features, or functionality will be provided on an if and when available basis. ©2010 WatchGuard Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. WatchGuard and the WatchGuard logo are either trademarks or registered trademarks of WatchGuard Technologies, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks and tradenames are the property of their respective owners. Part No. WGCE66800_041910
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