Email Spam Firewall for Exchange and SMTP Servers

Alt-NTechnologies has incorporated over 10 years of mail server technology expertise to develop an email security firewall for users of any SMTP email server. SecurityGateway email spam firewall for Exchange/SMTP Servers incorporates multiple defense layers that deliver comprehensive protection at the edge of your network to prevent spam, phishing, viruses, and other threats to your email communications. Built upon the industry standard SIEVE mail filtering language, SecurityGateway for Exchange/SMTP offers performance and flexibility in managing inbound and outbound email traffic.

Anti-Spam

Multiple testing methods allow administrators to adjust spam prevention techniques and block 99% of incoming spam.

• Heuristic and Bayesian Engines allow for two different filtering techniques
• DNS and URI Blocklists use numerous third-party servers to determine spam
• Greylisting delays inbound mail from unknown senders to discourage spam
• Message Certification allows for a third-party to validate a sending server so it is considered friendly
• Backscatter Protection prevents receiving irritating bounce messages from messages you did not send
• Message Scoring can be customized to fit each domain's needs — each domain can refuse, quarantine, or tag messages based on various scores

Anti-Virus

Flexible configuration to perform automatic updates at regular intervals, ensuring the greatest protection. Messages with viruses may be refused or quarantined for later review on a per-domain basis.

ProtectionPlus for SecurityGateway (Optional)

Extends and complements the built-in anti-virus and anti-spam features of SecurityGateway, allowing administrators the flexibility to use multiple AV engines in addition to real-time virus and spam pattern analysis.

• Kaspersky AV Engine provides best of class antivirus scanning
• Outbreak Protection allows SecurityGateway to recognize spam or virus outbreaks almost immediately as they are released over the Internet

Anti-Spoofing

Multiple techniques are used to verify a sender's address to prevent spammers from forging the origin of the message.

• Reverse Lookups can tag or refuse messages if the sending mail server or email address is forged
• Call Back Verify allows SecurityGateway to verify that the sending email address is valid before accepting the message

Email Authentication

Incorporates current authentication techniques used to validate and sign messages to minimize the receipt of possible spam messages.

• DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) associates domain names to represent a sender's identity. Messages are sent with a digital "fingerprint," which is then validated upon receipt to confirm the signer's identity and to ensure the message was not tampered with during transit over the Internet
• Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and Sender ID uses IP-based or path-based methods to verify the sender of a message

Anti-Abuse

Multiple techniques to allow legitimate mail in while preventing unauthorized access — all configurable on a per-domain basis.

• Relay Control prohibits messages from being accepted or delivered if they are not to or from a SecurityGateway user
• SMTP Authentication can force users to authenticate with a username and password when sending mail, if desired
• IP Shielding allows SecurityGateway to only accept mail from a domain if it matches a pre—defined domain/IP pair
• Dynamic Screening bans senders based on their suspicious activity
• Tarpitting deliberately slows sessions when abuse-type activity is detected
• Bandwidth Throttling can prevent email services from using all available bandwidth

Filtering

Minimize incoming and outgoing threats by blocking or quarantining messages based on content or types of file attachments.

• Multiple Search Strings may be defined for a single condition in which a user can specify if the condition must match any or all of the defined strings — useful for searching a message header or body against a list of keywords
• Message Content Filter allows the administrator to look for content within a message and take action based on the results
• Preset File Types allows the administrator to tell SecurityGateway to block all attached video files, images, or executable files with one click
• Attachment Filtering allows content filter rules and custom sieve scripts to perform actions based upon the content of an attachment
• Greylisting is supported for Sieve scripts running during the DATA event

Blacklists

Block threats from known email abusers.

• Addresses — match addresses by domain or email address
• Hosts — match by the host name given during the SMTP session
• IP — match by connecting IP address
• Blacklist Actions allow the administrator to refuse or quarantine if a blacklist match occurs

Whitelists

Speed up message processing through the identification of friendly senders.

• Addresses — exempt email from addresses by domain or email address
• Hosts — exempt email by the host name given during the email session
• IP — exempt email by connecting IP address

Policy Enforcement

The powerful SIEVE email filter language can minimize data leakage of sensitive or proprietary information per company email policies. With the intuitive GUI design, administrators may prioritize and add to the filtering process in order to better manage the incoming and outgoing message flow.

SecurityGateway Email Spam Firewall Requirements

These are the minimum recommended system requirements for SecurityGateway email spam firewall for Exchange/SMTP Servers to run. This does not take into account running multiple programs simultaneously. To run several programs on the computer at the same time, the computer should exceed these recommendations.

Server side requirements:

• Microsoft Windows XP/2000/2003/2008/Vista/7 operating system including 64-bit versions. (Windows server operating system recommended).
• Pentium 4 processor (multiple core processor recommended).
• 512 MB of memory (2 GB recommended).
• NTFS volume with minimum 500MB free disk space.
• Data retention and logging settings will have an impact on necessary disk space.

Client machine requirements:

• MSIE 6.0, FireFox 1.5, Opera 8.5, Safari 3.0 (or later).
• To view graphical reports, Flash Player 8 or above is required.

Note:As with all email software the SecurityGateway for Exchange/SMTP is heavily I/O bound. Performance can be improved with faster hard drives. A separate disk for logs and database backups is recommended.