Tech Shout!

On Monday, Symantec Corp. launched the Symantec Mail Security 8220, an appliance that facilitates small businesses to protect their organisation from spam and email-based malicious code.

The Symantec Mail Security 8220 combines antivirus, antispam, an email firewall, traffic shaping, content filtering, and content compliance capabilities in a single appliance. It features antispam technologies that catch span with a 95 percent effectiveness rate, and prevent false positives with a 99.9999 percent accuracy rate, according to the company. Symantec AntiVirus technology provides real-time scanning for inbound and outbound messages, automated updates, and flexible policies for handling messages containing viruses.

According to a survey by the Small Business Technology Institute sponsored by Symantec, 20 percent of small businesses have yet to run virus scanning on their email. Moreover, 56 percent of small businesses surveyed experienced at least one security incident in the last year, as per the survey. Small businesses rank second in being the most targeted population in terms of overall attacks; spam made up more than 61 percent of all email traffic between January 1 and June 20, 2005. Symantec alone blocked 1.04 billion phishing attempts in the first half of 2005.

With this appliance, Symantec now puts forward three deployment options–appliance, software, and hosted–for delivering mail security technology. Small businesses that prefer an appliance can go in for the Symantec Mail Security 8220 Appliance, while companies that prefer on-premises software can choose Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam for Small Business. Small businesses can also select a hosted offering with Symantec Hosted Mail Security for Small Business, which provides email security without the requirement for hardware or software.

The Mail Security 8220 Appliance retails for $995. The antispam software for one year is approximately $20 per user; the antispam plus antivirus software for one year is priced at $34 per user. Small businesses can purchase licenses on a per-user basis at any increment from 1-100.