Tag: Email Security
To Delete or to Quarantine? An answer
A couple days ago, a fellow anti-spam specialist posted an interesting article called "To Delete or to Quarantine? That is the Question" on the GFI blog, AllSpammedUp. I would recommend you read his article prior to this one. The author, Ed Fisher, was discussing several of the problems attached to spam-quarantine management from both an IT administrator's and an end-user's perspective. Within my role at Vircom Email Security, I've asked myself the exact same questions a couple months ago during what became the directQuarantine product definition. (May 27, 2011)
IPv6 for Service Providers, SMBs and Technology providers
In the late nineties, there was Y2K. Governments, businesses and individuals got scared big time. As a consequence, massive amounts of money were invested to prevent doomsday before it was too late. And it paid off. More than 10 years later, we can say the transition from the second to the third millennium was pretty smooth. Again, the world is faced with a new threat: IPv4 has ran out of addresses. (Apr 28, 2011)
directQuarantine for Outlook Launches Today
Today Vircom launches directQuarantine for Outlook, a Microsoft add-on for Outlook designed to relieve IT administrators from time-consuming quarantine tasks. Users can view, sort, search & release their quarantined email directly within Outlook. (Apr 19, 2011)
Poll: Corporate Email Security Solutions
What is most important to you for an email security and anti-spam corporate solution? (Apr 04, 2011)
Conficker worm on April 1st
It's that time of year again when most admins get more nervous about computer security. Why? April 1st is looming, and often malware is implanted on victims' machines with an internal timer set to unleash its effects on April Fool's Day. (Mar 29, 2011)
Message Throttling Issues With Exchange and an Email Security Gateway
From time to time, you might find that messages get stuck in your email security gateway server and don’t get delivered to your Exchange server. This usually happens with new installations or when the system receives a sudden, high load of email. (Mar 23, 2011)
Keep Control of your Mailboxes in Microsoft Exchange
It’s always a good idea to keep control of how many mailboxes you have in Microsoft Exchange. Why? There are several types of objects in Exchange that have mailbox-like behaviors, so they can receive mail from the outside world. (Mar 16, 2011)
How To Deploy a Spam Filter with Exchange: Whitelists & Blacklists
Installing Exchange Server anti-spam components (for Exchange Server 2007 and 2010) can improve security by allowing the administrator to apply whitelists and blacklists on the Edge Transport and Hub Transport servers. But, over time, they can also place a burden on administrators because they must be managed manually. (Mar 15, 2011)
Anti-Spam Performance Awards in the Real World
Why would an anti-spam filter with tons of awards guaranteeing 99.9%+ catch rate and ultra-low false positive rates perform poorly in the real world? Why would an email security software from another vendor do better despite having a lower score in the same certification/award program? (Feb 28, 2011)
Spear Phishing with unsecured databases
Remember the old phishing emails that starting with “Dear User1”? Well, those days have passed and scammers have gotten to know you better. And where’s the best place to do that - Facebook? Yes of course, but that’s not the only source of information. (Feb 14, 2011)
Troubleshooting your mail server part 2
In Part 1 of Troubleshooting your email server, I showed you how to use telnet to determine whether or not your mail server is having communication problems on port 25. In this part, we’ll see how to test address resolution to check for DNS Server problems (Jan 27, 2011)
World Business Guide 2011: New Year, Old Scam
Over the past 6 years, this scam has been called Euro Business Guide and World Business Directory, claiming thousands of victims and making thousands of dollars in the process. Why change a winning formula? In 2011 it’s back as the World Business Guide. (Jan 21, 2011)
The impact of IPv6 on message filtering systems
An interesting article was posted on Slashdot in December: "As public IPv4 addresses dwindle and carriers roll out IPv6, a new problem has surfaced.." In the short term, this is definitely going to be a problem for email security companies that rely strongly on DNSBLs or reputation-based systems. (Jan 19, 2011)
Troubleshooting your mail server part 1
It’s not unusual to get an end-user complaint about problems sending email or login attempts timing out. These issues often point to a specific client configuration or browser setting. But what if the situation involves more than a simple client feature, and has been reported by many end users? The first step is to determine if there is indeed a server communication problem. (Jan 17, 2011)
25 Most Common Mistakes in Email Security
The 25 most common mistakes in email security. (Jan 14, 2011)
Short Story: UTMs Are Not a Panacea
One of my customers is an admin who works within a small portion of a larger institution. The main administrative group decided to overhaul their primary firewalls with UTM devices instead, which included spam and virus filtering for MTAs (Mail Transfer Agents). Can a UTM device replace a dedicated device? (Dec 10, 2010)
How To Deploy a Spam Filter with Exchange
Spam, any unwanted email, has been an increasing problem for business. Not only is it a nuisance, it can often be downright dangerous for your business, carrying viruses and other malware. Various spam filters exist; however, choosing the best option for your company can get complicated. Do you use a separate server to act as a mail relay, a third party program, or integrate the filter into your firewall or your mail server? (Dec 07, 2010)
In the war against spam, where does legislation fit in?
Currently, there are several different approaches to fighting spam, including:Technological, Associative and Legislative.Today I’ll talk about the legislative approach: what it actually represents, along with its status, limitations and weaknesses. (Dec 06, 2010)
Slow Mail Server? Not so Fast!
You just completed installing a brand new mail server, and the mailboxes have been configured and enabled. The newly mounted server is a monster: able to take punishment, heavy loads, and process data in a flash. (Dec 01, 2010)
Latest spear phishing wave targets companies
Let’s say your name is Jim and you get this email. It looks like this Michelle knows you but you can’t really remember who she is. Since you have 8,641,037 friends on Facebook, you decide to trust the email (it’s not perfect, but it’s not as full of typos as typical spam, so that’s a start!). (Nov 12, 2010)
More Recent News
Recent Spam Survey Winners
We are extremely pleased with the tremendous response that we have received to this point from our Fight Email Spam survey. As promised we have randomly selected winners of our gift card prizes. (Jan 23, 2012)
New Year's Resolution
We spend 8 to 10 (or more) hours a day at work - more time than we spend anywhere else - and our desks/workspaces are becoming our kitchen tables. But, do you realize that our desks are covered in more bacteria... (Jan 20, 2012)
Email Usage Survey
We are currently conducting a market research on email usage at work. Thank you for filling our this very short survey. (Jan 12, 2012)
