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Should you outsource your email antivirus antispam (AV/AS) systems? 

The option of hosted antivirus antispam email protection security systems is getting stronger as the complexity and severity of email spam and viruses problems grow.

The Decision to Outsource

For the most part, this is a traditional buy vs. build decision: Does the company want to invest in equipment and personnel (and their training).

In most buy vs. build scenarios, the end product, if configured, installed, and administered correctly, provides about the same level of benefits to the end user.

The outsourcing trend for hosted antivirus antispam email protection is growing both in the number of companies under contract and the average size of those companies. There is very good engagement with companies of all sizes, Fortune 500 companies as well as small and midsize businesses.

The allure of outsourcing actually increases as complexity, represented in the number of locations that e-mail users are located in, and other factors, increase. Indications are that the outsourcing model is overcoming the in-house, do-it-yourself preconceptions at even the largest companies.

There are several areas in which proponents claim that outsourced antivirus antispam email protection solutions are better than solutions installed and administered by internal IT staffs.

More Intensive Updating

The fundamental difference between outsourced and in-house techniques is the reactive quality of the latter compared to the proactive approach of the former. In-house antivirus antispam techniques rely on updates from the vendors. This is a bad idea, outsourcers say, for three interrelated reasons. First, there is a significant time lapse between when a virus or spam variant is identified and when the definition is prepared and distributed. Customers' systems are vulnerable during this lag. Second, the practical reality is that there are too many viruses for updates to be prepared and distributed. Frequently, new viruses, which are often variants of older ones, go unaddressed for days. Third is human nature: Available updates and patches often go uninstalled.

Outsource companies operate in a different dynamic. The approach is to change the MX record of the e-mail address and have it delivered from the public Internet to their servers. Since all of the traffic goes through this central point, updated virus definitions and spam catching mechanisms can be implemented instantaneously and as often as necessary. And, since their business is stopping viruses and canning spam, it is unlikely that they will be subject to the inertia common in IT departments.

The ability to update more frequently should be seen, proponents say, within the larger framework of the fact that outsourcers specialize in antivirus antispam email protection . The point is that crackers, spammers, and assorted other bad apples are very clever. Even if businesses were willing and financially able to pour money on the problem and willing to update as soon as the patch or fix was available, existing generic IT staff is at a disadvantage simply because they aren't experts.