Proofpoint conversion was a success!
During the week of June 16th through June 20th, Information Technology converted WSU's spam filtering software from Barracuda to Proofpoint on Demand.
Users should now notice a decrease of spam in their WSU email account.
Overview
To protect the Washington State University community from inbound email security threats such as viruses and spam, Information Technology Services have deployed a new email security solution. The new solution is a hosted service from Proofpoint, Inc., called Proofpoint on Demand. Proofpoint uses an advanced machine learning filtering technique called MLX™ to ensure that no valid mail is improperly filtered. All hardware and software maintenance is handled directly by Proofpoint. All email security policies and filtering is managed by WSU. For more information about the Proofpoint Protection Server and MLX, you can visit Proofpoint’s web site at www.proofpoint.com
What's New:
"Proofpoint On Demand" is a hosted e-mail security solution where the vendor hardware and software are deployed at Proofpoint data centers offering WSU greater redundancy and fail-over, availability, performance, reliability, and security. All hardware and software maintenance will be handled directly by Proofpoint. All e-mail security policies and filtering will be managed by WSU.
Improved Performance:
Users should see an improvement in e-mail performance. The Proofpoint E-mail Security Appliances are hosted at Proofpoint data centers, so 98% of spam will be deleted before ever reaching the WSU network.
The above graph represents Proofpoint's Spam Score Distribution. Proofpoint scores all e-mail messages on a score from 0-100. Any message that scores a 80-100 is labeled as spam. Any message that scores 0-49 is labeled as not spam. Messages scored 50-79 are labled as "Probable Spam". As you can see by the chart, the majority of e-mail sent to users is spam. The e-mail messages that show up in your End User Digest are "probable spam." They require your approval to be sent to your inbox. If you take no action, these e-mail messages will be deleted by Proofpoint after 14 days.
What's different:
The ability to control your quarantine from the e-mail interface instead of having to log in to a web based quarantine. This should be the end to quarantine logins and passwords.
What's Gone:
The upkeep and maintenance of the Barracuda appliances and of course tons of spam.
If you have any questions feel free to contact the IT Helpdesk at 335-4357 or helpdesk@wsu.edu.