Email Security: Anti-Spam, Anti-Virus, Anti-Phishing

E-mail threats have transformed dramatically in recent years from a mere annoyance to a severe drain on business resources. Serving as conductors of spam, viruses, phishing and other harmful threats, e-mail-borne attacks are growing in sophistication - the results are considerable damages and extensive costs. While inbound e-mail threats are of great concern, the threat to your business information assets is two-way. In other words, your outgoing email can prove to be just as damaging to your business and and to your personal reputation. Best practices and regulatory requirements call for careful management of outbound e-mail, preventing unauthorized dissemination of private and confidential information.


While workstation-based products offer some measure of protection against some email threats, the ideal place to deal with these threats is at the edge of your network. Here's the problem; workstation-based do-it-all programs such as Internet security suites offered by AVG, F-Secure, Norton and McAfee are fine as far as they go, but:

The issues cited above may not warrant action on the part of the average residential Internet user, but they are deadly serious concerns for the small business owner. Given the size and nature of your business, it may well be worth your while to consider use of a dedicated email security appliance or a managed email security service.

 

 

Why Use a Separate Device for Email Security?

 

The issue is pretty straightforward: processing power. Here's the problem in a nutshell: your average Linksys/D-Link/NETGEAR router doesn't run a dedicated operating system capable of dealing with email security issue. That little wireless router you bought down at Best Buy doesn't have the memory, the smarts or the processing power to act as much more than a speed bump for an interested intruder.  You have to move up to something like a SonicWALL TZ150/170 series router that can and does run a dedicated, embedded operating system. At this level, you'll generally find support for everything (anti-virus, anti-trojan, intrusion detection/prevention) except in-depth email security functions.

 

The reason for this is that the memory and processing power required to perform comprehensive and sophisticated email security would place an undue burden upon a router already tasked with defending your network against spyware, viruses and Trojans. It is also preferable to have a device sitting behind your firewall where it can prevent issues with outgoing email.

 

This sort of functionality isn't exactly inexpensive, but it is dirt cheap compared to the damage that will result from a breach of your email security.  We recommend SonicWALL as the only reasonably affordable email security appliance offering for small to medium sized business.

 

 

Why Use a Managed Service for Email Security?

 

Your business needs effective, reliable protection from spam, viruses and other email threats. It doesn't need more administrative headaches.

That's why thousands of businesses, state and local governments, and educational institutions choose the award-winning MX Logic Email Defense Service, which offers enterprise-grade service and performance, without enterprise-level complexity and cost.

The MX Logic Email Defense Service works at the network perimeter to identify, quarantine, block and strip suspect email messages before they can enter the messaging infrastructure, based on customer preferences established in the intuitive, easy-to-use MX Control ConsoleSM.

Feature-rich package of protection, easy administration

Unlike appliances and enterprise software solutions that require integration, migration and a significant amount of ongoing maintenance, the MX Logic Email Defense Service is effortless and highly effective. Our solution requires no upfront capital or integration, is flexible and easy to administer, and offers rapid activation. The service includes:

For added security, the MX Logic Email Defense Service supports SMTP over TLS, providing email delivery encryption which allows customers to easily send and receive email over a secure, end-to-end encrypted tunnel. And, our flexible, easy-to-use Group policies management feature enables customer administrators to create user groups, and subscribe each user group to a particular set of filtering policies.

Award-winning protection for your business

The MX Logic Email Defense Service continues to earn recognition for its effectiveness in protecting businesses from email threats.

The innovative service was honored as the Best Managed Email Service in the 2006 SC Magazine Reader Trust Technology Awards, and was selected as a 2005 Product of the Year by SearchExchange.com.

In addition, the Email Defense Service was awarded the highest available rating of five stars in the VeriTest Anti-Spam Benchmark Service Summer 2005 Report, in the vendor-tuned portion of the test. MX Logic also posted the highest spam catch rates in the independent test, with an out-of-the-box catch rate of 99.71% and 99.76% in the vendor-tuned portion of the test. For more information, visit http://www.mxlogic.com/news_events/awards.cfm.
 

 

 

SonicWALL E-mail Security 200

Cost: Approx $1500.00*

 

*Includes 1 year Email security software subscription for 25 users renewable at $195.00/year
Features and Benefits

Award-winning anti-spam engine coupled with end-to-end attack monitoring ensures the most effective and current protection from spam attacks. Corporate phishing protection ensures that organizations are protected from identity theft. SonicWALL delivers the only solution that uniquely identifies phishing e-mails and enables administrators to handle these messages separately.

Time Zero Virus Technology protects customers from the time a virus outbreak occurs until the time a signature update is available. SonicWALL provides additional layers of protection by partnering with McAfee and Kaspersky Labs for signature updates. End-user spam management allows easy delegation of spam management to end users, reducing false positives and lessening the load on IT. This enables organizations to handle the differing needs of its employees.

DHA, DoS and zombie attack protection combined with SonicWALL’s anti-spam, anti-phishing and anti-virus capabilities provides robust solutions for stopping all e-mail threats. With an integrated LDAP/ Exchange Accelerator, the security and performance of e-mail systems are never compromised.

Inbound and outbound e-mail management capabilities bi-directionally monitor content passing through the SMTP gateway. Inbound e-mail threats like spam, viruses and phishing attacks can be stopped before they invade the network while outbound e-mail content can be carefully managed, preventing confidential information leaks.

Content compliance capabilities help organizations adhere to regulatory and e-mail compliance requirements and enforce organizational e-mail polices. SonicWALL Email Security intelligently identifies e-mails that violate compliance policies, monitors and reports the problem and applies actions.

Seamless LDAP integration ensures that SonicWALL Email Security solutions automatically synchronize with directories for single sign-on and automatic management of e-mail addresses and accounts. Additionally, policies, users and groups can be managed based on existing LDAP information.

Robust reporting provides easily customizable, system-wide and granular reporting, including information on attack types, solution effectiveness and system performance.

Rapid installation and ease-of-management drastically reduces the burden on small businesses to implement and maintain an in-house e-mail security solution. Taking no more than an hour to install, and administration not exceeding 10 minutes a week, SonicWALL Email Security is the easiest yet most effective solution available.

How It Works

SonicWALL analyzes global data from a variety of sources concerning the identity and methods of email scammers. From this information, malware profiles are constantly updated and are subsequently pushed out to all SonicWALL security devices. Furthermore, emails are constantly checked using heuristic analysis that works to detect and prevent zero-day attacks. The bottom line: The SonicWALL Email Security platforms are intelligent and aggressive defenders of one of your most vulnerable areas - your email.

Download these white papers presented in .PDF format  for further details and information SonicWALL Comprehensive Email Security

SonicWALL Email Protection Software Subscription