Case study: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

In 2001, viruses and spam were becoming an increasing problem for its 10,000 email users and a hard-pressed IT department. The university found the ideal solution with Sophos PureMessage, which now protects students and faculty staff, while giving them individual control over spam filtering.

"We could not find the kind of filtering flexibileness offered by PureMessage in any other anti-spam solution."
Lawrence HY Law, Information Technology Services Center Director

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Fact file

Business challenge

• The university was receiving a massive amount of complaints from users about spam and wanted a solution that could calculate spam probabilities for individual users. Close to 30% of emails were offensive spam and could have adversely affected the university's reputation.

Technology solution

• PureMessage allows users to set their own spam defaults, based on the probability of messages being spam, at a level they feel comfortable with.
• An option is available for users to be included in, or excluded from, some marketing mailing lists, which allows additional choice and flexibility.
• PureMessage's scalability means the university can add even more email users in the future.

Business results

• Since rolling out PureMessage to all users, the IT department has had fewer complaints about spam.
• During the outbreak of the Sobig-F virus, the university was able to prevent the virus from entering the email gateway and did not experience any network problems.