Microsoft Exchange Server 2003
Customer Solution Case Study
Healthcare Organization Reduces Spam by 95
Percent with Intelligent Message Filter
Overview
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Healthcare
Customer Profile
Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) is an
award-winning healthcare system in the
Boston, Massachusetts, area. With nearly
5,000 employees, it includes three
hospitals and more than 20 primary care
practices.
Business Situation
In 2005, CHA experienced a sharp increase
in the amount of unsolicited commercial email, or spam, received. Employee
productivity suffered, and IT resources
were increasingly constrained.
Solution
CHA implemented Microsoft® Exchange
Server Intelligent Message Filter, an
antispam resource fully integrated with
Exchange Server 2003 and Office Outlook®
2003.
Benefits
 95 percent reduction in spam
 Long-term, dynamic protection
 Easy to implement and run
 Increased productivity
 Increased IT resources
“Doctors’ time is at a premium, so spam is especially
expensive for them. The improvements the filter has
made to their workflow have had a positive impact on
productivity, which benefits everyone.”
Dan Cameron, Senior Technical Architect, Cambridge Health Alliance
Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), an award-winning healthcare
system, needed to reduce the amount of unsolicited e-mail, or
spam, that it was receiving. By the end of 2005, about 60 to 70
percent of e-mail that CHA received was spam—a problematic
increase from previous years. As a result, employee productivity
suffered, and IT resources were being consumed through greater
need for storage space, bandwidth, and administrator labor hours.
Already a user of Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003, the
organization tested the Exchange Intelligent Message Filter, the
antispam resource available to all users of Exchange Server 2003.
Since implementing the filter, CHA has reduced spam by 95
percent. Workflow and productivity have improved, and the
organization has found the solution easy to implement, manage,
and keep up-to-date as spam tactics evolve.
Situation
An award-winning healthcare system serving
the greater Boston, Massachusetts, region,
Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) includes
three hospitals, more than 20 primary care
practices, and the Cambridge Public Health
Department. Public health, clinical care,
academics, and research are some of the
domains of the organization, whose mission
is to improve the health of individuals. CHA
employs nearly 5,000 people.
By the beginning of 2005, CHA was just
completing some widespread improvements
to its technology infrastructure. It had
upgraded from Microsoft® Exchange Server
version 5.5 to Exchange Server 2003, and
adopted the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003
messaging and collaboration client. It had
consolidated from four server computers to
one, while providing improved scalability—
CHA could grow to 6,000 users without
adding additional hardware. Also, Exchange
ActiveSync® technology in Exchange Server
2003 enabled employees to be more
productive when away from their desks. Using
mobile devices, they could now access their
inbox, calendars, and contacts within
Exchange Server from afar.
However, as 2005 wore on, unsolicited
commercial e-mail became an increasing
problem. At the time, CHA had no antispam
software in place, because there hadn’t been
a strong need for it. Senior Technical
Architect Dan Cameron says, “Spam wasn’t a
major problem for us prior to 2005.”
However, as the volume of spam and the
sophistication of spam tactics continued to
grow, says Cameron, “We began to be
plagued with spam on a daily basis—to the
point where e-mail was becoming
unproductive. About 60 to 70 percent of
messages that employees were receiving
were spam.”
Besides the nuisance factor associated with
spam, the problem introduced prohibitive
costs throughout the organization. Employees
were spending a lot of time trying to rid their
inboxes of junk e-mail. And the IT
organization incurred costs related to
resources: It needed greater bandwidth and
storage space, as well as administrator labor
hours, to deal with the problem.
CHA needed a cutting-edge antispam solution
that would effectively eliminate spam
messages now and in the future.
Solution
Before evaluating third-party technologies,
the IT department at Cambridge Health
Alliance decided to deploy the Microsoft
Exchange Server Intelligent Message Filter,
available as a download at no extra cost to
users of Exchange Server 2003. After
determining the effectiveness of the filter,
CHA would decide whether to retain it or
pursue another solution.
The fact that the technology was provided as
a cost-free add-on did not make the solution
more or less potentially viable in the eyes of
CHA. “We implement technology based on
how effective it is, not who owns it or how
much it costs,” says Cameron. That an
antispam solution might be fully integrated
with the organization’s communication and
collaboration server was seen as promising.
Says Cameron, “Most companies base their
technology decisions on functionality,
support, total cost of ownership, ease of
management, and so on—and that’s what we
based our decision on.”
The Intelligent Message Filter provides
advanced server-side message filtering to
combat the influx of spam. Used in
conjunction with Outlook 2003, it helps
significantly reduce the volume of spam that
users receive. The filter employs
SmartScreen™ technology from Microsoft
Research to track more than 500,000 e-mail
characteristics to classify a message as
legitimate or spam.
The Intelligent Message Filter is installed on
an e-mail gateway server at the Internet
perimeter. When external users send e-mail,
the filter evaluates the message content and
assigns a rating based on the probability that
it is spam. The rating is stored as a message
property called a spam confidence level (SCL)
within the message itself. Administrators set
thresholds to determine how to handle
messages with given SCL ratings.
On the client side, Outlook 2003 and Outlook
Web Access users can create a list of safe
senders from whom they always want to
accept e-mail messages and a list of blocked
senders from whom they always want to
reject e-mail messages.
In addition to safe and blocked senders lists,
CHA uses sender and inbound recipient
filtering to identify and block spam, and
global deny and accept lists. These lists help
to reduce the amount of false positives, or
messages incorrectly categorized as spam, by
specifying IP addresses from which to always
accept or deny messages. CHA relies on
twice-monthly filter updates to stay guarded
against spam in the future.
Cambridge Health Alliance began testing the
Intelligent Message Filter add-on in
November 2005. For about a month, CHA
recorded the spam confidence levels of both
spam e-mail messages and non-spam e-mail
messages of several employees. This helped
determine where to set threshold sensitivity
levels and see whether messages were being
incorrectly categorized as spam. “Healthcare
receives a lot of e-mail messages containing
terms usually associated with spam—for
example, Viagra,” says Cameron. “We needed
a solution that could distinguish between
these messages and actual spam.”
In December 2005, the IT department rolled
out the solution to the entire organization.
“The results were impressive,” says Cameron.
“There were virtually no false positives, and
we immediately saw about a 95 percent
reduction in spam.”
In February 2005, CHA applied Exchange
Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2), which
included enhancements to the Intelligent
Message Filter, now fully incorporated into
Exchange Server 2003.
Benefits
CHA has achieved a 95 percent reduction in
spam messages. Employee productivity and
workflow have greatly improved, and the
organization is seeing significant savings in IT
resources. CHA is able to implement and
administer the antispam solution easily and
keep the organization guarded against spam
in the future through twice-monthly filter
updates.
95 Percent Reduction in Spam
CHA’s IT department has been impressed
with the effectiveness and flexibility of the
antispam solution. Cameron says, “We
implement best-of-breed technologies,
whether from a startup or a major vendor.
Based on our results with the Intelligent
Message Filter, Microsoft has done its
homework. The technology stacks up well
against the competition.”
The global deny and accept lists have proved
especially helpful for CHA. These lists specify
Sending IP addresses from which to always
accept or deny messages. Prior to using the
lists, internal CHA e-mail messages sent
using Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
were occasionally mistaken as external
messages, or spam. “Once we began using
the global deny and accept lists, this was no
longer an issue.”
Before use of the Intelligent Message Filter,
nearly 70 percent of e-mail messages
received by CHA were spam. Now, says
Cameron, “We’re blocking nearly 95 percent
of the spam coming into the organization, if
not more.”
Increased Productivity and IT Resources
Previous to implementing the new solution,
employees returning from vacation would
need to wade through thousands of spam
messages. “That doesn’t happen anymore,”
says Cameron. “We have received countless
messages from our doctors thanking us for
using such effective technology.”
The new lack of spam has benefited both
attitudes and workflow. “Doctors’ time is at a
premium, so spam is especially expensive for
them,” says Cameron. “The improvements
that the filter has made to their workflow
have had a positive impact on productivity,
which benefits everyone.”
The IT department has also seen significant
savings in IT resources through conserved
storage space and labor hours.
Easy Implementation and Administration
For CHA, the solution was easy to install, test,
and configure. “Check a few boxes and
decide on your settings, and you’re in
business,” Cameron says. “It’s the easiest
thing I’ve ever implemented. It integrates well
with our other technology, so things tend to
be easy to support going forward. The total
cost of ownership is very low.”
Long-Term, Dynamic Spam Protection
Because spammers constantly change tactics
to find new ways to penetrate antispam
defenses, CHA applies twice-monthly updates
to the Intelligent Message Filter as soon as
they become available. The frequency of
updates gives the organization long-term
peace of mind. Going forward, CHA plans to
implement new features of the filter as they
become available. Says Cameron, “I honestly
think that Microsoft is very focused on
security and that across the board the
company will continue to provide some of the
best protection around.”
For More Information
Microsoft Windows Server System
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Microsoft Windows Server System is a line of
integrated and manageable server software
designed to reduce the complexity and cost
of IT. Windows Server System enables you to
spend less time and budget on managing
your systems so that you can focus your
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For more information about Windows Server
System, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem
For more information about Cambridge
Healthcare Alliance products and services,
call (617) 665-2300 or visit the Web site
at:
www.challiance.org
Software and Services

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case
study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO
WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Microsoft, ActiveSync, Outlook, SmartScreen, and Windows
Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks
of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other
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owners.
Document published June 2006
Products
− Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
− Microsoft Outlook Web Access
− Microsoft Exchange Server 2003