Brisbane Grammar battles 'overwhelming' security attacks

James Scollay, VP MessageLabs Asia Pacific, said, “The education sector is a major target for increasingly sophisticated viruses and other malware attacks that can bring down networks.”

Brisbane Grammar implemented MessageLabs’ anti-spam and anti-virus services to protect its 1500 staff and student email users.

MessageLabs provides managed services for over 18,000 clients globally, including law firms, airlines and leading banks. In Australia, Brisbane Grammar joins Virgin Blue and Visy as a MessageLabs partner.

“Our service sits between the internet and the end-user,” said Philip Routley, MessageLabs product marketing manager. “So we can filter out spam and viruses before they even reach the user.

“When a new virus is spotted, we can deploy a solution to all of our customers immediately, unlike other services which rely on downloading and installing patches.”

Routley said that although most spam and viruses were generated overseas in regions without rigid spam laws, such as Eastern Europe and Russia, Australians were not immune from attack.

“Spammers and hackers are getting smarter and making use of new technology,” he said. “Australian companies are just as vulnerable as those around the world.”