US online bank Bancorp Bank claims to have eliminated
website downtime and improved the efficiency of its e-mail
communications after installing IT to protect its systems against
directory harvest attackers.
The bank, which provides managed online banking services for more
than 60 US organisations, put in protection systems last year after
a series of attacks by spamming groups disrupted e-mail
communications with its 8,000 banking customers.
Bancorp discovered its systems were being bombarded by messages
from hacking groups attempting to identify valid e-mail addresses
on the company's systems for resale to spammers.
Pete Chiccino, chief security officer at Bancorp, said, "This
caused a slowdown in mail delivery because we were trying to
process the invalid messages. It took us offline while we waded
through 30,000 e-mails. One time it was an entire day."
Bancorp invested in two Tumbleweed Mailgate Edge mail relays, which
can identify and filter out the attack messages before they reach
Bancorp's systems, which are based on Windows, Unix and
Linux.
"We are an internet-based business, so e-mail is our primary
communication. When e-mail goes offline it is a huge hit. Since we
have put in the Edge relays we have had no problems," said
Chiccino.