Microsoft cracks down on Asian spam

Authorities in Asia will receive a helping hand from Microsoft in cracking down on the menace of unsolicited email.

As part of its current global campaign against unsolicited commercial email, or spam, the software giant says it will use better filtering, legal action and IT security education. It says it will also offer help to Asian authorities drawing up anti-spam laws.

According to reports, a large portion of the world's spam - some say as much as 90 percent - comes from Asia, from countries with relatively less developed anti-spam laws such as China, Korea and Taiwan. Weak security, such as mail servers with relays left open for exploitation by spammers, has also been blamed for the flood of junk mail from the region.

Moore, Microsoft's chief technology officer in Asia, said: "Spam is fast becoming one of the most serious problems facing email users, accounting for more than 50 per cent of all email traffic."

The upcoming releases of MSN 9, Microsoft Exchange and the Outlook messaging and collaboration client in Office 2003 will include filters to detect spam and verify whether the senders of messages are who they say they are, said Moore.

MSN already blocks 2.4 billion pieces of spam each day to its Hotmail users, according to Microsoft. Increasingly, online services such as MSN are touting anti-spam features to differentiate their products from rivals.

The firm has a list-creation deterrent, called Human Interactive Proof (HIP), which reduces the growth of machine-created MSN email accounts used to distribute spam. HIP has cut email registrations by 20 per cent, he said.

Other services, including Yahoo!, also offer similar "web beacon" image blocking and HIP anti-spam features.

The forthcoming Exchange Server 2003 provides connection filtering based on support for real-time blacklists (RBL). Image blocking in Outlook Web Access (OWA) prevents by default the download of image-based "Web beacons" that verify addresses for spammers.

In addition, users can save Outlook 2003 and Outlook Web Access (OWA) "safe" and "block" sender lists on the Exchange server, stopping spam before it gets to the client inbox. Outlook Web Access also supports web beacon blocking.

Microsoft is also providing anti-spam firms with a tool to build more sophisticated filters within Exchange 2003, said Moore.

The new tool will allow incoming emails to be scanned and attached with a numeric score, or Spam Confidence Level (SCL). Based on a threshold set by an administrator, the message will be forwarded to either the recipient's inbox or junk mail folder.

"While we've added new anti-spam technologies to our arsenal, it's important to note that technical solutions are only one part of a comprehensive anti-spam effort," said Moore.

The firm plans to work with government departments and business groups across Asia to run technical training for businesses, focused on how to secure computer systems against spammers. Plans to launch the program have been announced for Hong Kong and Korea.

On the legal front, the company has filed 15 lawsuits in the US and UK against alleged spammers. Lawsuits against spammers in China and Korea - two major global spam sources - are expected to be trickier to execute because of the relatively less developed anti-spam legal framework in these countries. However, the company also said that it hopes to work with authorities in Asia to tighten anti-spam laws.