Sophisticated Scanning of Compressed File Archives Add to Existing Reputation and Fingerprint Analysis to Further Stop the Latest “Pump-and-Dump” Stock Spam Campaigns

Campbell, Calif., Aug. 13, 2007 – Barracuda Networks, Inc., a leading provider of network security appliances, today announced it deployed additional technologies to put the brakes on the recent plague of ZIP attachment spam messages that started hitting email inboxes in late July.  The Barracuda Spam Firewall is the first to utilize a comprehensive scanning approach to successfully block the latest “pump-and-dump” stock spam campaign comprised of compressed text, Excel and PDF files.

“Rather than relying on a single method, such as IP reputation analysis, to block new spam campaigns, the Barracuda Spam Firewall has always utilized a layered approach to protection,” said Stephen Pao, vice president of product management for Barracuda Networks.  “With today’s announcement, the Barracuda Spam Firewall augments its existing protection against spam campaigns utilizing ZIP archive files with even more comprehensive analysis when spammers deploy new botnets or new spam variants.”

In late July, spammers developed a new variation of the “pump-and-dump” spam campaign in which text, Excel, and PDF files containing a spam message were compressed and then sent as attachments to email. Spammers attempted again to bypass text and image scanning engines in email security products by using a different type of attachment that required the use of ZIP file utilities to decompress the file.  During this spam campaign, nearly 10 percent of all spam email contained ZIP attachments, according to Barracuda Central, an advanced technology center at Barracuda Networks consisting of highly trained engineers who continuously monitor and block the latest Internet threats. 

Existing Barracuda Spam Firewall Protection Against New Spam Attacks
Similar to previous PDF and image spam attacks over the past year, these attacks generally utilized existing botnets that were already blocked through Barracuda Reputation analysis.  To counteract new portions of established botnets aimed at delivering tainted emails, the Barracuda Spam Firewall’s fingerprint analysis layer blocked common spam variants that could be identified through unique binary signatures.  Through the efforts of Barracuda Central, the Barracuda Spam Firewall blocked ZIP spam very early on, and enabled development of spam definitions to be delivered and shared amongst the 40,000 customers around the world.

New Spam Scanning of Compressed File Archive Attachments
As a further countermeasure to block this new form of spam, the Barracuda Spam Firewall was the first to utilize a comprehensive scanning approach comprised of a refined spam scoring engine to identify the known spam techniques embedded within archive file attachments.  Using these techniques, along with enhancements to Barracuda Networks Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, the Barracuda Spam Firewall effectively blocks ZIP files containing spam content.

“Barracuda Networks has been extremely aggressive at combating the latest spam attacks,” added Pao.  “Building upon our recently announced PDF spam protection, multi-pass OCR technology, Barracuda Real-Time Protection and Predictive Sender Profiling initiative, we feel confident that we continue to deliver the best spam protection at the best value in the industry.”
For more information on how the Barracuda Spam Firewall is combating this latest wave of “pump and dump” stock ZIP spam and to view samples from this recent spam campaign, visit http://www.barracuda.com/trends/zipspam. 

For more information about the powerful technologies fueling the Barracuda Spam Firewall to deliver a 95 percent spam accuracy rating out of the box, visit http://www.barracudanetworks.com/technology.

About the Barracuda Spam Firewall
The Barracuda Spam Firewall is available in seven models and supports up to 30,000 active users with no per user licensing fees.  Its architecture leverages 12 defense layers: denial of service and security protection, rate control, IP analysis, sender authentication, recipient verification, virus protection, policy (user-specified rules), Fingerprint Analysis, Intent Analysis, Image Analysis, Bayesian Analysis, and a Spam Rules Scoring engine.  In addition, the entire Barracuda Spam Firewall line features simultaneous inbound and outbound email filtering with the inclusion of sophisticated outbound email filtering techniques, such as rate controls, domain restrictions, user authentication (SASL), keyword and attachment blocking, dual layer virus blocking, and remote user support for outbound email filtering.  The Barracuda Spam Firewall’s layered approach minimizes the processing of each email, which yields the performance required to process millions of messages per day.  For more information on the Barracuda Spam Firewall, visit http://www.barracuda.com/spam.