Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange

Email security software preventing the spread of malware

Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange brings Symantec's malware prevention technology directly to your on-premises infrastructure. With real-time email protection against malware, phishing, and targeted attacks, organisations will also benefit from the Brightmail technology blocking 99% of spam with less than one in one million false positives.

Supporting Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, 2010 and 2013 in almost any scenario including Hosting-mode, on Microsoft Hyper-V, or VMware virtualization platforms, Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange complements other layers of protection by preventing the spread of malware and spam attacks, and enforcing data loss prevention policies.

How it works

A question we are often asked, if I have Anti-virus on the my endpoints and I have anti-virus at the gateway, why do I need Anti-Virus for my Exchange Server?

Think of Exchange as a database, a database to store and forward messages, and as a database it has the peculiar ability to store Executables. When you think about storing Executables in a database is not that common. And as we all know malware is no more than an executable with a dangerous payload.

The consequence is that endpoint AV or in deed gateway of SMTP type AV scanners cannot access the Exchange database. Hence once malware is passed into MS Exchange, it is effectively hidden, concealed from such AV scanners. The implication is that an email with an attachment (Virus) can reside in Exchange and only come to light again when the user accesses the email and either the Endpoint AV or the Gateway SMTP AV scanners detects it, however they will be unable to clear out the root course.

As the virus will remain lurking in Exchange waiting for the next time the user access or forward the email. There is a expression used within IT Security of ‘Security in-depth’; of not relying on any single security precaution and that series of controls is a better strategy, having protection for the internal message store of MS Exchange along with endpoint and gateway malware protection is just such an example of this doctrine.

Key Features & Benefits

• Ability to scan messages in transit or on the mailbox to protect against email borne threats
• Rapid release definitions and advanced heuristic technologies provide immediate protection
• Advanced content filtering protects sensitive information using pre-defined policies, regular expressions, attachment criteria, true file typing, and more. Microsoft Active Directory® based enforcement simplifies policy management
• Optimised and specifically designed for Exchange – protecting MS Exchange for over 10 years plus
• Flexible real-time, scheduled, and manual scanning provides efficient protection
• In-memory scanning and effective multi-threading provides superior performance
• Leverages AV Stamping to eliminate redundant scanning and minimize impact to mail store

Opinion & Resources

Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange is an Exchange hook-in solution that enables Virus scanning of all email received (external) by the exchange server as well as all email communication between (internal) email user inboxes, this ensures the Exchange server can not inadvertently become a mass viral transfer agent.
In addition Anti Spam and Content control rules can be applied in the same way. Nigel Lewis