The RE/MAX International network of about 85,000 Sales Associates in more than 4,600 offices in 44 countries is as culturally and ethnically diverse as the communities in which Securence affiliates serve. With unsolicited email at an all-time industry high in the summer of 2002, ensuring the safety, security, and confidence of RE/MAX's 43,000 email accounts became a challenge that could no longer be ignored. According to Kristi Graning, Vice President of Web Services & IT Marketing at RE/MAX, "Spamming companies figured out that we had a naming scheme under remax.net, and so they systematically generated email addresses that were associated with it and then sent out spam accordingly."

Securence is a trusted, global provider of integrated anti-spam and anti-virus solutions. The company's unique solutions help protect organizations by scanning email and eliminating threats, such as viruses, worms, malicious content and attachments, and other junk mail before reaching the end user. To this end, Securence is uniquely positioned to deliver the experience and technology needed to secure organizations against the risks posed by the new spam economy.

Marketers see email as a quick and cheap way to promote their goods and services. Many companies send highly targeted email to users who have opted-in to receive these messages. Typically, these messages are of interest to the user. Examples of these include newsletters and notifications of sales and/or promotions to specific goods or services. Ensuring the privacy of the user, companies will place an nsubscribe?mechanism that will effectively take the user off future mailing lists.

Email is a vital communications channel for organizations of all kinds ?from corporations to educational institutions and government agencies. As a result, email systems have become an even more important component of their information infrastructure. But with the significant growth of Spam, viruses and other types of email-borne attacks in the past year, system managers are finding it more challenging to manage and protect this critical communications asset.

Within a business environment, critical email addresses, e.g. sales or support fall victim to inbox pollution. Spammers can overload a critical email address with so much spam that the address is essentially rendered unusable.

The following practices from MailTotal Security will help you reduce the thousands of unwanted messages from entering your email inbox:

Despite the critical role Email plays in day-to-day business, Email servers typically are not protected by a corporation's firewall and security appliances. Often inbound Email is passed through regardless of content, size, or address and is directed straight to the Email system. This creates a perfect opportunity for attackers, Spammers, and senders of email viruses to cause problems ?costing millions of dollars in lost productivity, interruption of services, and wasted or damaged systems. In addition, Spam containing offensive material, such as pornography, can result in employee complaints and possible legal action.

There are over 10,000 known computer viruses. Everyday, there are thousands of infections. In this modern age, there is absolutely no excuse for not running some sort of virus scan and anti-virus software on your computer. If you choose not to, you are risking major hardware failure and data loss. One leading anti-virus suite is the Norton AntiVirus Suite.

Address Harvester: A program that searches web pages and filters newsgroup postings looking for valid email addresses to be used for spam purposes. (See also harvesting.)

Syratech is a mid-sized international manufacturer and distributor of quality home décor, silverware, and gift items. The company operates six sites in the U.S., one in Puerto Rico, and five more in Asia. Mike Burns, the Networking Services Manager for Syratech's North American site describes a simple, but serious problem his company was facing. "We were receiving tons and tons of spam. In fact, some of our people were receiving nothing but spam e-mail."