Microsoft builds spam filters into Exchange

Most antivirus software vendors have also moved, in the past year, to integrate antispam technology with their products, responding to rapid growth in the volume of unwanted e-mail messages.

In recent days, Microsoft has briefed anti-virus vendors on its plans, telling them that it wants to work with them to stop spam e-mail using a multiple filter approach, that its IMF lacks features they have in their products and that all the parties involved are better off working together to fight spam, according to a source at a leading anti-virus company.

A decision to move to a server-based approach to fighting spam would not be surprising, especially since Microsoft did not add to enhance anti-spam features in the recent Outlook e-mail client, which was released in October as part of Office 2003, according to John Pescatore, an analyst at Gartner Inc.

"It's a lot more effective to do (anti-spam scanning) on the server end, " Pescatore said.

While viruses and worms may be more destructive, spam is the number one problem identified by e-mail users, according to James Kobielus, a senior analyst Burton Group.

"People worry about viruses like they worry about terrorist attacks. (Viruses) are highly destructive, but they're also more manageable in terms of (an e-mail user's) day-to-day stress level than spam," he said.

Microsoft technology is not implicated in the growth of spam e-mail, as it sometimes is when viruses maximize security holes in the company's products, Kobielus and Pescatore said.

However, as with viruses, Microsoft feels the wrath of customers who are being overwhelmed with spam e-mail delivered through its Exchange, Outlook and Hotmail messaging products, driving the company to try to make its messaging products more secure, they said.