October 18, 2007

FEATURE EDITORIAL

Companies Reveal Email, IM, Voicemail and Records Retention Policies

A survey conducted by Osterman Research and sponsored by message archiving provider, LiveOffice, found that companies are not well-prepared for the new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP). Established by the Federal Court system, these rules require organizations that operate within the United States to manage their electronically stored information (ESI) so that it can be produced in a timely and complete manner. This includes emails and instant messages (IMs). The new rules went into effect December 2006. "52 percent of IT managers polled do not have an e-Discovery plan that has been prepared by legal counsel, increasing the chances of costly mistakes," believes Matt Smith, president of LiveOffice. "Even more surprising, nearly one-third of the organizations polled admitted that, even if they had to, they could not produce a year-old email."

Law firm Fulbright & Jaworski LLP this week released its fourth annual survey of litigation trends, of which a portion focused on sensitive aspects of workplace privacy in the way that companies retain employee voice message, emails and instant messages. Here are a few survey highlights:

Watch Those IMs. As instant messaging gains widespread use at many companies – 53 percent of in-house counsel said employees use IM, while the rate among billion-dollar firms was 70 percent – businesses have the added burden of capturing and retaining those running online conversations in the event they are needed in a litigation hold instruction. The portion of companies logging employee IMs is considerable – 28 percent said they retain the messages as routine policy or in certain cases; for billion-dollar firms, the segment was 40 percent. While many companies may archive IMs for only several weeks or a month, 43 percent keep them for two months or longer, including 15 percent holding on for at least a year; among large companies, 25 percent maintain IMs for one year. One-third of all companies permit employees to attach documents to instant messaging – which can take on added significance in light of the extended holding periods in place at some businesses.

And Those Voicemails. Besides IMs, companies these days have to consider holding on to voicemail. Forty percent of in-house counsel said they have a retention policy for employee voice messages. As with IM, much of the phone chatter is saved for a month or less, but 31 percent of companies store their voicemail for at least two months, including 9 percent with a one-year or longer hold policy. The retention protocols become even more complex considering that 37 percent of companies said their phone systems allow voice messages to be forwarded to others via email, creating a potentially huge web of vocal documentation.

Minding the Grey Areas. Further complicating e-Discovery and document retention practices is the line that employees regularly cross between their business and personal discourse. Thirty-seven percent of the Fulbright survey respondents said they allow employees to access outside email accounts using company-issued computers; for billion-dollar companies, the allowance rate was 44 percent; and for tech shops, it rose to 61 percent. Meanwhile, 74 percent of companies let employees access the corporate network from their home computers. The high degree of co-mingled communication could lead to unexpected challenges in a litigation context.

This is the first year the Fulbright & Jaworski survey asked companies to reveal their email, IM, voicemail and records retention policies. Another indication the responsibility of e-Discovery preparedness is becoming more critical for organizations.

Spam Reaches All-Time High of 95 Percent of All Email

This week Commtouch released its Email Threats Trend Report for the third quarter of 2007, based on the automated analysis of billions of email messages weekly. The report examines the appearance of new kinds of attachment spam such as PDF spam and Excel spam together with the decline of image spam, as well as the growing threat of innocent appearing spam containing links to malicious websites.

Highlights of the report include:

• Global spam levels reached an all-time high of 95 percent of all emails at its peak during the quarter.
• Blended threat messages – or spam messages with links to malicious URLs – accounted for up to 8 percent of all global email traffic during the peaks of various attacks during the quarter.
• One massive outbreak mid-quarter utilized over 11,000 dynamic zombie IP addresses to host malicious websites. Leading zombie locations included the United States (36 percent) and Russia (8 percent).
• Image spam declined to a level of less than 5 percent of all spam, down from 30 percent in the first quarter of 2007; also, image pump-and-dump spam has all but disappeared, with pornographic images taking its place.
• PDF spam represented 10-15 percent of all spam in early July and then dropped significantly, however a steady stream of PDF spam is still being maintained at 3-5 percent of all spam messages.
• Pharmaceuticals and sexual enhancers were the most popular spam topics, at 30 percent and 23 percent, respectively

Blended Threats: Spam with Malware Hyperlinks Inside

One technique, which reached a new high during the quarter, was innocent-appearing spam messages that contained hyperlinks to malware sites. This type of spam utilizes vast zombie botnets to launch 'drive-by downloads' and evade detection by most anti-virus engines. Several blended spam attacks of this type focused on leisure-time activities, such as sports and video games, from what appeared to be legitimate websites. Instead, consumers voluntarily downloaded malware onto their computers.

IN THE NEWS:

New Email Archiving Service

MessageLabs, a provider of integrated messaging and Web security services, announced this week the launch of v3.0 of its Archiving service. The company says that MessageLabs is the first managed service provider to offer email archiving suited to all three major archiving needs: email storage management, legal discovery and regulatory compliance. The MessageLabs Archiving Service v3.0 provides easy search and retrieval. New and enhanced key features include attachment stubbing and Microsoft 2007 Support. Attachment stubbing is an automated process that replaces attachments in users' mailboxes with references to the archive, thereby reducing the amount of storage required in Exchange by leveraging the data already stored in the Secure Archive. Microsoft 2007 Support supports end-user search within Outlook 2000, 2003 and 2007, as well as the new Office 2007 document format and Exchange 2007 envelope journaling.

Increasing Email Deliverability through Better Reputation Management

Email software solutions provider Message Systems announced this week that it has partnered with Return Path to provide Message Systems Delivery Manager users with expanded opportunities to increase email deliverability through advanced reputation management best practices and technology. Message Systems is now offering the Return Path Sender Score platform as an add-on option to the Message Systems Message Transfer Agent (MTA). According to Message Systems, more than 20 percent of email never makes it to the intended inbox because ISPs and other email receivers block it as spam, hindering overall response rates and subsequent revenue opportunities. Knowing what reputation standards ISPs are using to evaluate incoming mail messages including complaint rates, email volume, unsubscribe functionality, spam trap hits and content can help corporate marketers solve the problems in their email program that hinder email delivery and response rates.

We welcome your ideas and your news for Messaging Newswire’s News & Trends in Email Security. Let us know what you think by sending your comments to editorial@messagingnews.com. Written or compiled by Stephanie Jordan. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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