Call sounded for anti-spam collaboration

Anti-spam vendors need to work together to combat spam

Security testing firm Virus Bulletin (VB) is calling on anti-spam vendors to work with one another to beat spam.

The company said on Monday that its latest round of spam tests suggested that vendors could provide better protection for all users if they were to collaborate when developing anti-spam tools.

VB said that the results of the latest round of anti-spam tests showed that if vendors were to share data on blocked messages everyone would benefit.

The company said that by combining the filters of five or more of the products on its latest test, a 'hypothetical' filter could be constructed with a 99.89 per cent catch rate and virtually no false- positive identifications.

The report could potentially lead to calls for anti-spam vendors to operate more like anti-virus vendors and better co-operate when sharing new threats and discoveries. In the meantime, VB is advising users to layer up for better spam protection.

"For end-users this means that if spam filtering is business-critical, the use of more than one spam filter may be a good option," said anti-spam test director Martijn Grooten.

"The anti-spam industry, meanwhile, should consider the benefits of collaboration and information sharing, and might be better able to protect our inboxes as a result."