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Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Listen to Forbes! Do Not Accept that Email Attachment. Use Accellion Instead.

Summary: Forbes magazines says clicking on email attachments from strangers is the most dangerous thing you can do online. Fortunately, Accellion takes the worry out of accepting file/folder attachments from others.

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Forbes magazine recently ran an article about The Ten Most Dangerous Online Activities. Number One on the list is “clicking on email attachments from unknown senders.” Why is this so dangerous? As the Forbes article points out, “e-mail attachments continue to be the most likely means of contracting viruses, worms, Trojan horses and other digital infections. And because these attachments usually contain applications or executable files, they have the greatest potential to instigate the complete takeover--or destruction--of an enterprise PC.”

But that’s not the worst of it. The really scary part is that people KNOW this and often STILL can’t resist opening attachments from senders they don’t know.

In a business environment, it only takes one careless person to open a harmful attachment and unleash a disaster on the network. Network administrators know this and do what they can to prevent such actions, including banning attachments like executable files known to carry malware. But hackers know this, too, and they are getting trickier in the way they embed malware in their attachments.

A better way to combat the threat of malicious email attachments is to stop using email attachments altogether. But wait, that doesn’t mean you can’t send and receive those business-critical files that would normally go through email. I’m simply suggesting you use a more secure alternative method to transfer your business files: via a secure file transfer appliance, which decouples attachments from the enterprise email system.

Accellion’s secure file transfer solution allows you to send and receive the files you need, and it takes away the worry of receiving (or sending) a malware-laden attachment. We do this in two ways.

Number one, by off-loading attachments from the email system to the Accellion appliance, you ensure that only people you know and authorize are using the system to send files. That means you won’t be getting spam or other junk attachments from people you don’t know – at least not through the appliance. If attachments do make their way into your email inbox, you can assume they are suspect and quarantine or delete them.

Number two, all files that pass through an Accellion solution can be automatically screened for malware by F-Secure virus scanning bundled into the product. When you send a file to the appliance for transfer, or retrieve a sent file off the appliance to put on your own PC, the anti-virus program can watch your back. I say “can” because virus scanning is optional with the solution, although highly recommended. The appliance administrator can choose no scanning, scanning only on upload, scanning only on download, or scanning on both upload and download. In other words, choose the mode that suits your business practices the best.

Using Accellion secure file transfer solution to transfer files and folders makes it significantly less likely that bad attachments will get onto your users’ PCs or into your network. It should be a part of your broad security measures to protect your network and your business. Automatic security processes are a good thing, because as the Forbes article points out, users just “can’t help themselves” when email attachments tempt them.

ACA Guy
Accellion in the News
Media Coverage

Sarbanes Oxley Compliance Journal
Sarbanes Oxley Compliance Journal - Track and Report Conformance During File Transfers
: Survey results confirm need for broader tracking and reporting features introduced in Accellion’s Courier Secure File Transfer Appliance.


ConstrucTech
ConstruTech - Perini Deploys Accellion
: ...[P]rotect our email infrastructure with the associated archiving systems while allowing users to send very large files as part of their regular business processes.

Press Releases
MSA Selects Accellion's Secure File Transfer Solution for Global Large File Transfer Needs

Exponent Deploys Accellion's Secure File Transfer Solution to Enhance Communication of Data with Enterprise Clients

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