Estate agency cuts spam and viruses

Your Move aims to protect staff from unwanted emails

Estate agency Your Move has dramatically reduced the volume of viruses and spam that affect its computer systems.

Your Move has installed email and internet security software from BlackSpider to protect its 2,900 employees in 270 branches around the UK.

Since installing the system in June, the firm has reduced the 185,000 spam emails it received every month to virtually none.

The firm has also put a stop to the 36,000 virus-infected emails it received on a monthly basis, says Simon Hill, business solutions manager at Your Move.

‘We have received hardly any viruses since putting the system in place,’ said Hill. ‘It gives us peace of mind and we don’t have to worry so much about updating anti-virus systems, which could be a headache.’

Your Move, previously part of Norwich Union, switched to the BlackSpider system after taking responsibility for managing its IT systems following a management buy-out.

Using the old system, IT staff spent an hour every day updating anti-virus technology to guard against new threats.

‘We needed to secure against viruses, but at the same time did not want to build our own systems in-house,’ said Hill.

The amount of spam the company was receiving was proving costly, with data storage systems being clogged up with unwanted messages.

‘Spam is always an issue for any IT department,’ said Simon Barnes, technical team leader at Your Move.

‘It is costly for IT staff because it saps bandwidth, and it is a waste of time to have to wade through junk email.

‘It was affecting productivity and network performance.’

The anti-spam technology is also helping the firm’s human resources policy by ensuring that employees are not subjected to offensive emails.

‘As an employer, we have a duty of care to protect employees from this, and the problem was so bad that we had to change their email address,’ said Barnes.