Synacor Turns to Cloudmark to Increase Spam Blocking, While Reducing SMTP Servers and False Positives

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Based in Buffalo, New York, Synacor is a global technology company with a comprehensive array of value-added solutions for Internet Service Providers (ISPs), including white label portals, premium online content and email collaboration suites. For ISPs looking to outsource email management, Synacor provides white label consumer and small business messaging solutions. Over the past nine years, telephone companies, cable operators, ISPs, media companies and advertisers alike have leveraged Synacor’s solutions to take advantage of the Internet to build close relationships with consumers.

The Challenge

In the midst of a major email project for a large ISP client, Synacor realized that its open-source email protection solution was no longer a viable tool for its growing customers’ needs. Due to large data requirements and an increase in malicious messages, the current system was straining the SMTP servers and was not able to handle messaging protection requirements of Synacor’s robust client list. Leaving Synacor vulnerable to mail floods, the company’s system architects determined it was in need of a highly accurate, scalable and high-performing messaging protection solution for its ISP customers that would integrate with its existing Linux servers. Synacor sought a complete email protection solution that would drastically cut the amount of spam reaching its clients’ inboxes, while stopping viruses and mitigating phishing attacks.

The Solution

For Synacor, time was of the essence, and a search for a viable messaging security solution was underway immediately. After weighing the options and evaluating several vendors, Synacor ultimately chose Cloudmark’s out-of-the-box solution that was able to integrate with the company’s existing Linux servers and address phishing attacks before they hit Synacor’s network. The company implemented Cloudmark Gateway messaging system and Cloudmark Authority service with anti-spam, anti-virus and anti-phishing.

An important factor was Cloudmark’s quick deployment. As an edge solution, Cloudmark Gateway can be deployed seamlessly in any hosted messaging environment, including Synacor’s open source Linux-based email platform. Within two days of creating and refining a script for the Cloudmark Gateway delivery rules, the solution was up and running. According to Phil Siebel, director of technical operations at Synacor, “Out-of-the-box, the Cloudmark solution fit our needs. We only had to adjust a few platform-specific attributes, allowing us to get the solution up and running with very little time and effort.”

Another primary decision factor for choosing Cloudmark was the solution’s overall effectiveness. In the past, phishing attacks were discovered only after a number of fraudulent messages were delivered to users’ inboxes. With Cloudmark’s solution, those malicious phishing messages are mitigated before they hit Synacor’s network.

Results

With Cloudmark’s solution in place, Synacor not only addressed the core issue of decreasing spam and phishing messages, but also the company has decreased customer service issues due to false positives, and in the data center the company reduced servers and space, while saving money on power and cooling. Thanks to the rate of message delivery dropping by 30 percent, Synacor’s back-end mail servers are significantly less burdened. Due to the manual nature of open-source solutions, since deploying Cloudmark’s solutions, Synacor also realized considerable savings from a time management perspective. For example, Synacor’s administrative staff went from spending hours a day to just hours a week managing the mail queues since the Cloudmark messaging protection solution now supports more users with virtually no manual intervention.

“One of the main factors in our decision process was the desire to lower our operating overhead,” said Siebel. “Many of Cloudmark’s competitors rely on discrete network edge devices in addition to SMTP servers. With our anticipated growth and previous configuration, it would have required a 400 percent increase in edge appliances to handle the user load, but with Cloudmark, we required less than one tenth of that number. In fact, with the Cloudmark implementation, we have saved $400,000 (USD) in capital expenses alone, and a further $185,000 (USD) in operating costs. That’s well worth the investment.”

About Synacor

Synacor builds Internet tools and portals that simplify the way consumers get their digital media. Its technology platform provides white label portals, premium online content and email collaboration suites to broadband service providers such as cable operators, telecommunications companies, Internet service providers and others. Synacor provides the focused expertise and technology that allow both service providers and content providers to extend their brands online and create a relevant, personalized online experience for consumers through a single sign-on portal, enhanced content packaging and aggregated billing.