ICSA Labs introduces Anti-Spam product certification
ICSA Labs today announced that it is now accepting anti-spam products for evaluation and certification testing. The goal of ICSA Labs’ anti-spam product testing and certification is to evaluate product effectiveness in detecting and removing spam, as well as how proficiently it recognizes messages from legitimate sources.
“Our research indicates a significant need in the marketplace, both among IT professionals and security vendors, for standardized spam filtering testing,” said George Japak, vice president of ICSA Labs. “Until now, a formal testing standard for anti-spam products didn’t exist; end users have been on their own in determining which products would best suit their environment. Anti-spam solutions that earn ICSA Labs Certification will offer assurance to buyers that they are effective and credible.”
Spam has become a significant security issue and a drain on IT, administrative and financial resources. There are a large number of solutions designed to help effectively detect and block spam, with most anti-spam products for the enterprise claiming to effectively detect more than 98 percent of spam. These solutions use different techniques for analyzing electronic mail messages to determine if they are spam. Because spam is continually changing, the most effective detection and blocking solutions contain multiple techniques to ensure that all spam—and only identified spam—is isolated.
“Many of our OEM partners and their customers already rely on the quality of ICSA Labs’ certification and testing,” said Eytan Urbas, vice president of products at Mailshell, a leading provider of anti-spam and anti-phishing engines, who assisted ICSA Labs in the development of the program. “We believe the anti-spam marketplace will embrace and benefit from ICSA Labs’ independent testing and verification for its products.”
In conjunction with the initial round of the anti-spam product testing, ICSA Labs has released version 1.0 of the Anti-Spam Certification Testing Criteria. The criteria consist of a baseline set of functional and assurance requirements that are applicable to a variety of organizations, including small-to-medium sized businesses, enterprises and carriers. To attain ICSA Labs’ Anti-Spam Certification, candidate anti-spam products and services must completely satisfy the entire set of baseline requirements.