SonicWALL's Resident E-mail Security Expert Andy Klein Forecasts More Than 5 Billion Political Spam Emails Will Attempt to Reach the In-Boxes of Registered Voters in the 30 Days Prior to the Nove

October 3, 2008 10:00 AM EDT

Andy Klein available as a Media Resource and available for comment on

Political Spam, Phalshing, Phishing Attacks and other E-mail based security

                                   attacks.

Sunnyvale, CA -- October 3, 2008 -- SonicWALL, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNWL), a leading secure network infrastructure company, announced that it is available for comment on the topic of political spam, economy and bank related spam, Phishing and other network-based security threats. In mid-September, SonicWALL forecasted that more than 5 billion political spam emails will reach the in-boxes of registered voters in the 30 days prior to the November 4, 2008 election. While economy and related bank failures have increased as spam subjects over the past week, SonicWALL's predictions are still on target. Spammers instead have capitalized on the event-driven news, by combining the two political subjects "Who is better for the economy, Obama or McCain?" SonicWALL predicts political spam will constitute 1-2% percent of all spam by Election Day on November 4.

    As a precautionary measure, SonicWALL's resident e-mail expert Andy Klein
is available as a resource on the topics of political spam, Phalshing,
Phishing and other network-based security threats. He has outlined three types
of political SPAM that consumers should watch for when determining whether or
not they should open the e-mail-especially in the days leading up to the
Election.

    BIO:       SonicWALL Product Manager, Andy Klein
               With more than 20 years of software development and product
               management experience, his current focus at SonicWALL is
               eradicating the scourge of spam and phishing from inboxes
               everywhere.  Mr. Klein came to SonicWALL via its acquisition of
               MailFrontier.  He was instrumental in building the SonicWALL
               GRID Network -- a real-time world-wide email reputation system.
               He also pioneered the SonicWALL "Phishing IQ Test" which has
               been taken by over 1 Million people around the world and
               continues to provide valuable insights into end-user
               interaction with phishing email.

    WHAT:      Klein is available to discuss political spam trends during this
               Presidential campaign. He can discuss: the SPAM trends of a
               Presidential Election year, the effects of spam during
               news-driven events and his predictions for the rise of spam for
               the days leading up to the general election.  For this election
               cycle, Klein notes that businesses and consumers should be
               aware of three basic types of political oriented spam in order
               to protect themselves:

               1)  Real spam that uses the election as a hook to get you to
                   open the spam message. The message itself has nothing to do
                   with the election. This category includes on the spot
                   "surveys" designed to get you to click on the link or
                   picture which take you to a spammer's web site.

               2)  Advocacy spam where a person or group send out spam to
                   advocate a point of view. This could include legitimate
                   messages that are sent out by either party or more likely
                   their PACs that use purchased lists or messages sent to
                   people who have opted in to receive such messages, but who
                   have either forgotten they opted in or disagree with the
                   message content itself and decide that to them it is spam.
                   Political Email does not have to conform to the Can-Spam
                   Act, so political parties are free to spam at will if they
                   desire. 7 to 8 percent of political spam will fall into
                   this category.

               3)  Scams such as phishing. Any ruse that is used to collect a
                   person's personal or financial information utilizing the
                   election is a candidate for this category.  2004 saw the
                   first phishing email based on a political race, utilizing a
                   John Kerry campaign contribution ruse to collect credit
                   card information. While federal authorities are always on
                   the lookout for these types of scams, they do continue to
                   occur from time-to-time. 2 to 3 percent of political spam
                   will fall into this category.

    RESOURCE:  For more information on how to protect yourself against spam,
               phishing and other e-mail attacks, go to:
               http://anti-spam.sonicwall.com/


     For MEDIA INTERVIEWS:           Colleen Nichols
                                     SonicWALL, Inc.
                                     (408) 962-6131
                                     E-mail: cnichols@sonicwall.com

About SonicWALL, Inc.

SonicWALL is committed to improving the performance and productivity of businesses of all sizes by engineering the cost and complexity out of running a secure network. Over one million SonicWALL appliances have been shipped through its global network of ten thousand channel partners to keep tens of millions of worldwide business computer users safe and in control of their data. SonicWALL's award-winning solutions include network security, secure remote access, content security, backup and recovery, and policy and management technology. For more information, visit the company web site at http://www.sonicwall.com/.

SOURCE SonicWALL, Inc.

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