Brochure GFI MailSecurity brochure (PDF - 120Kb)

MailSecurity for Exchange 2000 White papers

Why you need GFI MailSecurity

GFI MailSecurity's deployment strategies: Which operating mode(s) to use in your network environment

One virus engine is not enough: The case for maximizing network protection with multiple anti-virus scanners

Why you need an email exploit detection engine: Companies must supplement anti-virus protection for maximum security

Protecting your network against email threats: How to block email viruses and attacks

Why anti-virus software is not enough: The urgent need for server-based email content checking
 
Email security
 

MailSecurity Reviews

Protects against email viruses, exploits & threats
The need to monitor email messages for dangerous, offensive or confidential content has never been more evident. The most deadly viruses, able to cripple your email system and corporate network in minutes, are being distributed worldwide via email in a matter of hours (for example, the Love Letter virus). Products that only perform anti-virus scanning do not provide sufficient protection. Worse still, email is likely to become the means for installing backdoors (Trojans) and other harmful programs to help potential intruders break into your network. Products restricted to anti-virus alone will never protect against this.

Your only defense is to install a comprehensive email content checking and anti-virus solution to safeguard your mail server & network. MailSecurity acts as an Email Firewall and protects you from email viruses, exploits and threats, as well as email attacks targeted at your organization.

MailSecurity is available as an SMTP gateway version and for VS API. The gateway version should be deployed at the perimeter of the network as a mail relay server and scans inbound and outbound mail. The VS API version integrates seamlessly with Exchange Server 2000/2003 and scans the Exchange 2000/2003 information stores. Both versions can be deployed simultaneously to achieve optimum protection.

Why MailSecurity above other anti-virus products?
Because MailSecurity alone gives you these essential email security features:

• multiple virus engines - for virus engine independence and better security

• email content & attachment checking - to quarantine dangerous emails

• exploit shield - for email intrusion detection & defense

• email threats engine - to analyses & defuses HTML scripts, .exe files & more

• best of breed Exchange message scanning technology
   

MailSecurity for Exchange 2000/2003 Features

Email content checking/filtering
MailSecurity's key feature is the ability to content check email. It can quarantine mail with dangerous attachments, such as *.exe, *.vbs and other files. Such attachments are highly likely to carry a virus, worm or email attack. It is therefore best to quarantine and check these files before they are distributed to the email users. When an email is quarantined, it can be reviewed by the administrator for approval or rejection.

Products that only offer anti-virus scanning will not protect against undiscovered viruses or email exploits and attacks designed to break into your network.

In addition to harmful attachments, MailSecurity can check for script code in the message body itself, as well as scanning for offensive content (for which a company could be sued) and information leaks (distribution of confidential information by users).

You can also choose to delete attachments like *.mp3 or *.mpg files, as these hog bandwidth and can needlessly burden a mail server's disk space. View screen shot of attachment checking rule options

Virus checking with multiple virus scanning engines
A key feature of MailSecurity is that it is virus engine independent. GFI's 'best of breed' Exchange message scanning technology can be combined with one or more 'best of breed' anti-virus engines to protect your company from virus threats. Running multiple virus engines gives you much greater security. Because each anti-virus engine has its strengths and weaknesses, multiple virus engines complement each other to provide higher levels of security. Note: In some countries and industries, it will become a legal requirement to scan your mail with multiple virus scanners!

Norman Virus Control & BitDefender virus engines are included MailSecurity comes bundled with Norman Virus Control 5 & BitDefender. Norman Virus Control 5 is the industrial strength virus engine that has received the 100% Virus Bulletin award 16 times running. It also has ICSA and Checkmark certification. BitDefender is a very fast and flexible virus engine that excels in the number of formats it recognizes and can scan. BitDefender is ICSA certified. MailSecurity automatically checks and updates the Norman Virus Control & BitDefender definition files as they become available. Included in the price of MailSecurity are updates for 1 year.

McAfee virus engine optional
To achieve even greater security, it is possible to add the renowned McAfee virus engine as a third anti-virus engine or as a replacement of one of the other engines. The McAfee virus engine is particularly strong at finding non-virus malware such as rogue ActiveX controls. Adding the McAfee engine costs approximately 20% of the MailSecurity price.

Seamless integration with Exchange Server 2000/2003 through VS API
MailSecurity for Exchange 2000 uses the new Virus Scanning API (VS API) of Exchange 2000/2003. This API is implemented at very low-level in the Exchange store. This allows MailSecurity to run with high performance and guarantees that each message is scanned before any client can access a message or attachment. MailSecurity can therefore also scan internal mail, as well as inbound and outbound mail. MailSecurity supports:

• Native MIME/MAPI content scanning

• Proactive & enhanced background scanning 

• Priority-based queuing & multithreaded queue processing 

• Per-messaging database configuration options 

• Event logging & performance monitor counters 

Microsoft strongly encourages the development and adoption of Exchange VS API-based content security solutions. In fact, Microsoft does not support any solutions not using VS API, meaning Microsoft Support might ask you to de-install content security solutions not based on VS API. More information on VS API

Email exploit detection engine
GFI's leading research on email exploits has contributed to the creation of MailSecurity's email exploit detection engine. This industry-first detects emails that contain known email exploits - think of it as "email intrusion detection". It therefore safeguards you from any current or future email viruses and attacks that use known exploits. MailSecurity is the ONLY email security product to protect against email exploits.

Automatic removal of HTML scripts 
The advent of HTML email has made it possible for hackers/virus writers to trigger commands by embedding them in HTML mail. MailSecurity detects and disables these commands before sending the 'cleaned' HTML mail to the recipient. MailSecurity is the only product to protect you from potentially malicious HTML email, not only safeguarding you from HTML viruses but also from attacks directed at your network via HTML email.

Automatic quarantining of Microsoft Word documents with macros
MailSecurity protects you from present and future Word and Excel macro viruses by automatically quarantining documents with macros. This means you can safely allow Word and Excel files to be sent via email, because MailSecurity will quarantine them if they are potentially malicious.

Detects attachment extension hiding
Email attachments with scripts (for example *.vbs) can be disguised as *.txt files by using the CLSID of the extension instead of the actual file extension. MailSecurity detects this and quarantines script or executable files, even if they are disguised as *.txt files, for example.

Rules-based configuration
MailSecurity's MMC based configuration allows you to create multiple content checking and attachment checking rules, so that you have total flexibility in the way you wish to content check mails.

Apply rules to AD users or groups
Rules can be applied to specific users or groups, allowing you to create a company-wide email security policy based on the needs of specific departments or users. Because MailSecurity supports Active Directory, there is no additional administration burden.

Approve/Reject quarantined mail using the moderator client/email client/public folders
You can approve/reject quarantined email using either the moderator client or an email client. The second method allows you to distribute the moderating task across multiple administrators, either by defining different administrators for different groups of users, or by using a public folder and granting multiple administrators access to this folder. View screenshot of approving mail via an e-mail client and approving mail via the moderator.

Lexical analysis
MailSecurity's content checking module supports lexical scanning of mails, by allowing you to specify Boolean combinations of words using AND or OR as operands.

Great value
MailSecurity is the most cost-effective content checking & anti-virus product available for Exchange 2000. The standard license includes a full year of anti-virus updates, as well as 3 months of free, unlimited support. The cost of anti-virus updates in the second year is minimal as well, approx. 15% of the purchase price, depending on the amount of users you have.

MailSecurity's companion product, Mail essentials
You can add anti-spam, disclaimers, mail archiving, Internet mail reporting, server-based auto replies and POP3 downloading through MailSecurity's companion product, Mail essentials 7, which is available in a bundle with MailSecurity.

Anti-spam (gateway version only)
MailSecurity includes a powerful spam filter that searches for keywords that identify spam. You can then either delete the spam or move it to a folder for review.