Facebook and Tata Communications Join MAAWG Board of Directors; Will Fight Spam and Online Abuse with Global Industry Organization
San Francisco, Aug. 18, 2010 – Demonstrating their commitment to work with the international online industry to protect consumers, Facebook and Tata Communications, a leading global telecom service provider that is part of India’s Tata Group, have joined the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group at the organization’s highest membership level and will serve on the MAAWG Board of Directors. MAAWG is the largest global organization targeting spam and other messaging exploits, and the new members will augment its presence both among social networking platforms and in emerging countries.
MAAWG has grown into an industry conduit for bringing together messaging experts working to curb spam and online abuse from around the world, from all aspects of the industry, and on all types of devices. Facebook has developers in over 180 countries and over 500 million users, including 150 million users actively accessing their accounts through mobile devices. The social media site will play an active role in MAAWG work, interfacing with other members to develop industry practices to safeguard end-users.
Tata Communications is a global telecom service provider based in India, part of the $70.8 billion Tata Group, and it delivers managed solutions to global enterprises, service providers and Indian consumers. Along with its pan-continent network, it has a leadership position in emerging markets and will share its broad perspective as MAAWG develops best practices and in the organization’s public policies discussions.
“Both Facebook and Tata Communications will be engaging with other important social media platforms, global ISPs and the diversified constituents within the industry, to not only make sure the online world is open and connected, but to also ensure it remains as safe as possible for consumers,” said Michael O’Reirdan, MAAWG Chairman.
Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s Chief Security Officer added, “Our deep commitment to site security requires the development of robust technologies and active engagement with organizations like MAAWG. We look forward to collaborating with the entire working group to aggressively fight messaging abuse.”
The MAAWG 20th General Meeting in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 4-6 will be an important venue for furthering this work. Attended by messaging and security specialists, public policy representatives and academic experts, it will feature professional training sessions open to the industry and multi-track presentations on global legislation, technology and policies to combat messaging abuse. The focus will be on participation in public policy and government initiatives along with ongoing committee work.
About the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG)
The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) is where the messaging industry comes together to work against spam, viruses, denial-of-service attacks and other online exploitation. MAAWG (www.MAAWG.org) represents over one billion mailboxes from some of the largest network operators worldwide. It is the only organization addressing messaging abuse holistically by systematically engaging all aspects of the problem, including technology, industry collaboration and public policy. MAAWG leverages the depth and experience of its global membership to tackle abuse on existing networks and new emerging services. It also works to educate global policy makers on the technical and operational issues related to online abuse and messaging. Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., MAAWG is an open forum driven by market needs and supported by major network operators and messaging providers.
About Facebook
Founded in February 2004, Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment. Facebook is a privately held company and is headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif.
About Tata Communications
Tata Communications is a leading global provider of a new world of communications. With a leadership position in emerging markets, Tata Communications leverages its advanced solutions capabilities and domain expertise across its global and pan-India network to deliver managed solutions to multi-national enterprises, service providers and Indian consumers. The Tata Global Network includes one of the most advanced and largest submarine cable networks, a Tier-1 IP network, with connectivity to more than 200 countries across 400 PoPs, and nearly 1 million square feet of data center and collocation space worldwide.
Tata Communications’ depth and breadth of reach in emerging markets includes leadership in Indian enterprise data services, leadership in global international voice, and strategic investments in operators in South Africa (Neotel), Sri Lanka (Tata Communications Lanka Limited) and Nepal (United Telecom Limited). Tata Communications Limited is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India and its ADRs are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. (NYSE: TCL) www.tatacommunications.com.
# # #
Media Contact: Linda Marcus, APR, 714-974-6356, LMarcus@astra.cc, Astra Communications
MAAWG Board of Directors: AOL; AT&T (NYSE: T); Cloudmark, Inc.; Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA); Cox Communications; Eloqua; Facebook; France Telecom (NYSE and Euronext: FTE); Goodmail Systems; Openwave Systems (NASDAQ: OPWV); Tata Communications (NYSE: TCL); Time Warner Cable; Verizon Communications; and Yahoo! Inc.
MAAWG Full Members: 1&1 Internet AG; Apple Inc.; Bizanga LTD; Cisco Systems, Inc.; Constant Contact (CTCT); e-Dialog; Edatis; Experian CheetahMail; Genius.com; Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ NASDAQ: IIJI); McAfee Inc.; PayPal; Return Path, Inc.; Spamhaus; Sprint; Symantec; YouSendIt; and Zynga, Inc.
A complete member list is available at /about/roster.
MAAWG Hosts GSMA Security Group in Europe Industry Meeting Attacks Spam Across Platforms, Promotes International, Industry-wide Cooperation
San Francisco, May 18, 2010 –The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group will host the GSMA Security Group at the MAAWG 19th General Meeting in Barcelona on June 8-10 with a multi-track event focusing on all forms of spam delivery, including mobile, broadband, terrestrial and Web messaging. The meeting will also feature an insiders’ panel discussing the recent crackdown on the Mariposa botnet, sessions on mobile spam and abuse reporting technologies, and a look at critical technical and international public policy issues affecting abuse abatement.
The GSM Association Security Group (GSMA-SG) will participate on various MAAWG panels and will hold its own closed sessions. In addition, MAAWG is making several of its June 7 technical training sessions available to non-member industry professionals at no cost in an effort to share critical information with the market.
GSMA SG Chairman Charles Brookson said, “We both face very similar challenges, and we are looking forward to a fruitful meeting leading to ongoing cooperation."
The three-day MAAWG meeting will include:
- Sessions on mobile spam reporting 7726, the state of bots on mobile networks, and expert discussions on the differences between Internet email and mobile messaging
- Panels on the Mariposa botnet and other international private/public initiatives to fight bots around the world
- An update on current international public policy concerns and potential projects
- DKIM (DomainKey Indentified Mail) signing strategies and MARF (Mail Abuse Reporting Format) sessions
- Working sessions on best practices for troubleshooting delivery problems and senders abuse reporting processes
- A comparison of the best – and worst – email marketing practices in both the United States and Europe
- A review of domain hacking and protection technologies, DNS Security case studies and DNSSEC deployment
To facilitate industry-wide dialogue, the ISP Closed Colloquium, usually restricted to MAAWG service providers, will be opened to all MAAWG members on June 10, including senders and vendors.
MAAWG, the largest industry organization working worldwide to combat all types of messaging abuse, invited GSMA to participate in the meeting because of its significant role representing the international mobile communications industry.
MAAWG Chairman Michael O’Reirdan said, “Spam, phishing and other types of messaging abuse move across devices and platforms as seamlessly as they travel across country borders these days. At MAAWG, our mission is to pursue industry cooperation to protect consumers and provide a safe online experience.”
Information on the meeting is available at the MAAWG website, www.maawg.org. Industry professionals also can find more information on the training there.
About the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG)
The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) is where the messaging industry comes together to work against spam, viruses, denial-of-service attacks and other online exploitation. MAAWG (www.MAAWG.org) represents almost one billion mailboxes from some of the largest network operators worldwide. It is the only organization addressing messaging abuse holistically by systematically engaging all aspects of the problem, including technology, industry collaboration and public policy. MAAWG leverages the depth and experience of its global membership to tackle abuse on existing networks and new emerging services. Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., MAAWG is an open forum driven by market needs and supported by major network operators and messaging providers.
# # #
Media Contact: Linda Marcus, APR, +1-714-974-6356, LMarcus@astra.cc, Astra Communications
MAAWG Board of Directors: AOL; AT&T (NYSE: T); Cloudmark, Inc.; Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA); Cox Communications; Eloqua; France Telecom (NYSE and Euronext: FTE); Goodmail Systems; Openwave Systems (NASDAQ: OPWV); Time Warner Cable; Verizon Communications; and Yahoo! Inc.
MAAWG Full Members: 1&1 Internet AG; Apple Inc.; Bizanga LTD; Cisco Systems, Inc.; Constant Contact (CTCT); e-Dialog; Experian CheetahMail; Genius.com; Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ NASDAQ: IIJI); McAfee Inc.; PayPal; Return Path, Inc.; Spamhaus; Sprint; Symantec; and Zynga, Inc.
Consumers Don’t Relate Bot Infections to Risky Behavior As Millions Continue to Click on Spam; MAAWG 2010 Email Security Consumer Survey Expands to North America and Western Europe
San Francisco, March 24, 2010 –A significant percentage of consumers continue to interact with spam despite their awareness of how bots and viruses spread through risky email behavior, according to the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) based on a new survey it released today covering North America and Western Europe. Even though over eighty percent of email users are aware of the existence of bots, tens of millions respond to spam in ways that could leave them vulnerable to a malware infection, according to the 2010 MAAWG Email Security Awareness and Usage Survey.
In the new survey, half of users said they had opened spam, clicked on a link in spam, opened a spam attachment, replied or forwarded it – activities that leave consumers susceptible to fraud, phishing, identity theft and infection. While most consumers said they were aware of the existence of bots, only one-third believed they were vulnerable to an infection.
“Consumers need to understand they are not powerless bystanders. They can play a key role in standing up to spammers by not engaging and just marking their emails as junk,” said Michael O’Reirdan, MAAWG chairman.
“When consumers respond to spam or click on links in junk mail, they often set themselves up for fraud or to have their computers compromised by criminals who use them to deliver more spam, spread viruses and launch cyber attacks,” O’Reirdan said.
The research findings on awareness of bots, email security practices, and attitudes toward controlling spam were generally consistent with the first MAAWG consumer survey in 2009 covering North America. The new 2010 survey was expanded to cover Western Europe and looks at consumers’ attitudes in Canada, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
It Won’t Happen to Me Syndrome
Less than half of the consumers surveyed saw themselves as the entity who should be most responsible for stopping the spread of viruses. Yet, only 36% of consumers believe they might get a virus and 46% of those who opened spam did so intentionally.
This is a problem because spam is one of the most common vehicles for spreading bots and viruses. The malware is often unknowingly installed on users’ computers when they open an attachment in a junk email or click on a link that takes them to a poisoned Web site, according to O’Reirdan.
Younger consumers tend to consider themselves more security savvy, possibly from having grown up with the Internet, yet they also take more risks. Among the survey’s key findings:
- Almost half of those who opened spam did so intentionally. Many wanted to unsubscribe or complain to the sender (25%), to see what would happen (18%) or were interested in the product (15%).
- Overall, 11% of consumers have clicked on a link in spam, 8% have opened attachments, 4% have forwarded it and 4% have replied to spam.
- On average, 44% of users consider themselves “somewhat experienced” with email security. In Germany, 33% of users see themselves as “expert” or “very experienced,” followed by around 20% in Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.A., 16% in Canada and just 8% in France.
- Men and email users under 35 years, the same demographic groups who tend to consider themselves more experienced with email security, are more likely to open or click on links or forward spam. Among email users under 35 years, 50% report having opened spam compared to 38% of those over 35. Younger users also were more likely to have clicked on a link in spam (13%) compared to less than 10% of older consumers.
- Consumers are most likely to hold their Internet or email service provider most responsible for stopping viruses and malware. Only 48% see themselves as most responsible, though in France this falls to 30% and 37% in Spain.
- Yet in terms of anti-virus effectiveness, consumers ranked themselves ahead of all others, except for anti-virus vendors: 56% of consumers rated their own ability to stop malware and 67% rated that of anti-virus vendors’ as very or fairly good. Government agencies, consumer advocacy agencies and social networking sites were among those rated most poorly.
The survey was conducted online between January 8 and 21, 2010 among over a thousand email users in the United States and over 500 email users in each of the other five countries. Participants were general consumers responsible for managing the security for their personal email address.
Both the survey’s key findings and the full report are available at the MAAWG Web site, www.MAAWG.org. The 2010 research was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, and the full report includes country comparisons for many of the questions along with detailed charts.
About the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG)
The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) is where the messaging industry comes together to work against spam, viruses, denial-of-service attacks and other online exploitation. MAAWG (www.MAAWG.org) represents almost one billion mailboxes from some of the largest network operators worldwide. It is the only organization addressing messaging abuse holistically by systematically engaging all aspects of the problem, including technology, industry collaboration and public policy. MAAWG leverages the depth and experience of its global membership to tackle abuse on existing networks and new emerging services. Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., MAAWG is an open forum driven by market needs and supported by major network operators and messaging providers.
# # #
Media Contact: Linda Marcus, APR, +1-714-974-6356, lmarcus@astra.cc, Astra Communications
MAAWG Board of Directors: AOL; AT&T (NYSE: T); Cloudmark, Inc.; Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA); Cox Communications; Eloqua; France Telecom (NYSE and Euronext: FTE); Goodmail Systems; Openwave Systems (NASDAQ: OPWV); Time Warner Cable; Verizon Communications; and Yahoo! Inc.
MAAWG Full Members: 1&1 Internet AG; Apple Inc.; Bizanga LTD; Cisco Systems, Inc.; Constant Contact (CTCT); e-Dialog; Experian CheetahMail; Genius.com; Internet Initiative Japan, (IIJ NASDAQ: IIJI); McAfee Inc.; NeuStar, Inc.; PayPal; Return Path, Inc.; Spamhaus; Sprint; and Symantec
A complete member list is available at /about/roster
Industry Experts Gather at MAAWG to “Protect the End User”; Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group Advances Innovative Practices to Safeguard Consumers from Spam and Bots
San Francisco, Jan. 28, 2010 – With the participation of some of the industry’s largest ISPs, email providers and Internet companies, the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) is focusing on how to better protect the end user from spam, bots and other messaging exploitations during its February meeting in San Francisco. The three-day, multi-track event will feature experts from Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, all the major anti-virus vendors, social networking sites, and anti-spam researchers, among others.
The first of three MAAWG meetings this year, the goal of the Feb. 16-18 event is to encourage a frank discussion and share innovative techniques to better safeguard consumers, according to Michael O’Reirdan, MAAWG chairman. MAAWG meetings are organized around a series of roundtables, expert presentations on groundbreaking work, and closed-door discussions on sensitive anti-spam issues.
Among the topics to be addressed at the meeting are:
- Web browser security
- The future of desktop and device email clients
- Domain registrar account security, such as problems that enabled the recent attack against a Chinese search engine
- Authentication and DKIM
- Wireless messaging abuse
- Bulk-email senders practices
- Initial results of the 2010 consumer email survey, expanded to cover both North America and Europe
The MAAWG ISP Closed Colloquium (ISPCC), held each day of the meeting, provides an opportunity for network operators to address confidential issues in private. This session will be opened to all meeting participants the last day of the event, providing a unique opportunity for dialogue among ISPs, bulk senders and vendors. Other MAAWG committee work will continue on best practices and white papers related to IPv6, port 53 issues, and feedback loops. Financial Times journalist Joseph Menn will share his research into DDOS espionage, the basis of his new book Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet.
MAAWG meetings are open to members and invited experts only. Registration and meeting information is available at www.MAAWG.org.
About the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG)
The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) is where the messaging industry comes together to work against spam, viruses, denial-of-service attacks and other online exploitation. MAAWG (www.MAAWG.org) represents almost one billion mailboxes from some of the largest network operators worldwide. It is the only organization addressing messaging abuse holistically by systematically engaging all aspects of the problem, including technology, industry collaboration and public policy. MAAWG leverages the depth and experience of its global membership to tackle abuse on existing networks and new emerging services. Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., MAAWG is an industry forum driven by market needs and supported by major network operators and messaging providers.
# # #
Media Contact: Linda Marcus, APR, +1-714-974-6356, lmarcus@astra.cc, Astra Communications
MAAWG Board of Directors: AOL; AT&T (NYSE: T); Cloudmark, Inc.; Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA); Cox Communications; Eloqua; France Telecom (NYSE and Euronext: FTE); Goodmail Systems; Openwave Systems (NASDAQ: OPWV); Time Warner Cable; Verizon Communications; and Yahoo! Inc.
MAAWG Full Members: 1&1 Internet AG; Apple Inc.; Bizanga LTD; Cisco Systems, Inc.; Constant Contact (CTCT); e-Dialog; Experian CheetahMail; Genius.com; Internet Initiative Japan, (IIJ NASDAQ: IIJI); McAfee Inc.; NeuStar, Inc.; Return Path, Inc.; Spamhaus; Sprint; and Symantec
A complete member list is available at /about/roster.