Collax Security Gateway Adds Advanced Spam Protection

BEDFORD, Mass., Nov. 30, 2006 — Small businesses looking for tight network security, with easy administration will find both with the latest Collax Security Gateway — a Linux-based Unified Threat Management (UTM) solution — available immediately.

Version 4.0.8 of the Collax Security Gateway adds two additional spam shields — a Bayesian filter and the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) — to its cascaded spam protection. The administrator now can collect all malware in a quarantine folder on the mail server, which is accessible remotely. This makes administration of the security solution easier and faster.

"Spam continues to clog email inboxes as spammers develop new ways to circumvent security measures," said Boris Nalbach, CEO, Collax. "The Collax Security Gateway learns to identify and delete emails including incorrectly written words like Via!gra."

Increased security through easier administration

Cascaded spam protection combines several detection methods. The technology behind the Bayesian filter is based on the fragmentation of the body text of an email into single words and the calculation of the probability of spam. Each word is counted to determine how often it appears in spam and ham emails, respectively. The Bayesian filter learns to distinguish between spam and ham emails. The administrator sets up a spam and ham folder on the company's mail server and the Collax Security Gateway accesses both folders and uses these emails for learning. Both folders will appear in the email folders of all users for each email client, for example in Outlook or Entourage. Using these folders, the user trains the Bayesian filter by assigning 'bad' emails to the spam folder and 'good' emails to the ham folder.

The SPF — Sender Policy Framework — enables the domain administrator to decide which IP addresses can send out emails with the domain name. The Collax Security Gateway checks that incoming emails match the corresponding IP addresses of the domains from which they were sent. If this is not the case, the email is re-directed as spam.

Pricing and availability

The Collax Security Gateway is free for download for 5 users and less from www.collax.com. The Collax Security Gateway 40, the entry-level model with a pre-configured plug-and-play appliance, is available at $1420 for one year and ten users, $1895 for three years. The software Collax Security Gateway version for up to ten users is available for $380. The version for 100 users is available for $1720. The subscription includes all upgrades, updates, security fixes and patches for the duration of the subscription.

About Collax — Simply Linux

Collax simplifies Linux. The company develops Linux-based server solutions (with or without hardware) for SMEs, as well as for departments and branch offices. Collax solutions are used as groupware, file, E-mail and web servers, and as VPN and security gateways incorporating firewalls, virus and spam protection and web content filters. The Collax doctrine — 'Simply Linux' — is epitomized by a simple and uniform user interface. This interface conceals the best-of-breed open source components which have been carefully selected and tested by Collax. The results are secure, economical and scalable server solutions which can be operated without any Linux know-how. All Collax solutions can be easily integrated into Windows, Macintosh and Linux networks. The company is based in Bedford/MA, USA, and has a branch in Ismaning near Munich. Further information about Collax is available on the Internet at www.collax.com