Before Investing in an Anti-spam Filter Know What to Look For

 

 

With a high percentage of emails directed at your inbox being spam, a good anti-spam filter is an absolutely vital piece of your email infrastructure. Knowing what to look for can help make the difference between a well-tuned email system, and a crawling mess of spam messages using up storage space and wasting users’ time. Before you go out and install the first anti-spam filter you find, here are some of the key things to consider.

 

Cloud-based or on-premise

There are hosted anti-spam filtering solutions that offer greater economies of scale, making them more affordable than in-house solutions. These can combine anti-spam with anti-malware, and filter out spam and other nasty stuff before it uses up your bandwidth or impacts your server’s storage and performance. The only downsides are that they represent a subscription service with monthly costs, and as an outsourced solution, some admins miss having the on-site control.

 

On-premise solutions are purchased (though they may have monthly or annual subscription costs for updates) so they can be capitalized, and by being in-house, the admins can have total control whenever they want.

 

Choose the solution that works best with your administrative style and costing strategy. If you choose an on-premise solution, make sure you select one that is server based, not client based. The administrative overhead of managing a server at your edge is much lower than trying to administer an agent installed on every client, and the licensing costs will likely be far less as well. Centralizing the anti-spam filter will make it easier to maintain, and will prevent spam messages from taking up space on users inboxes, and on your mailbox servers.

 

Spam detection methods

There are a variety of ways to detect and block spam. No single way is fully effective; you need a product that combines methods for a defense-in-depth approach. Bayesian filtering is a very effective way to detect spam, but it must be ‘trained’ to your environment. Whitelists need to be in place to minimize false positives that could block critical business communications. Keyword lists should also be an option for companies whose business might include words that others would consider spam. Other approaches include SMTP header analysis, blacklists, using SPF records to reduce spoofing, and reputation services. By combining the analysis of these multiple methods you ensure the maximum effectiveness of your anti-spam filter, while minimizing false positives.

 

User self-service

Whitelisting business partners and customers, and checking the quarantine folder for blocked messages, can both become major tasks for the helpdesk. Look for anti-spam filter solutions that offer user self-service, both for adding senders to the whitelist, and for enabling users to release quarantined messages themselves, or by delivering spam to the user’s junk mail folder.

 

Reporting

Today’s management is all about the metrics. Look for an anti-spam filter that includes robust reporting and that includes the ability to use this information in dashboards or for computing SLAs. Spam is one of those problems that no one notices as long as your anti-spam filter is doing a good job, but that becomes a major issue if a spam message slips through.

 

 

Remember, whether cloud-based or on-premise, a good anti-spam filter offers you defense in depth, economical licensing, reduces the administrative overhead, and supports users for routine tasks.

 

This guest post was provided by Ed Fisher on behalf of GFI Software Ltd. GFI is a leading software developer that provides a single source for network administrators to address their network security, content security and messaging needs. More information: GFI email archiving.

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

5 Benefits of Automating Patch Management

You need a patch management solution for proper patch management. But what are the benefits of automating patch management for these companies?

 

1. Security

Security is the most obvious reason as to why companies would want to have an automated patch management solution in place. One of the main reasons why software vendors release new patches is to fix security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious software or people intending to damage the IT systems or network.

 

Applying security patches in a timely fashion highly reduces the risk of having a security breach and all the related problems that come with it, like data theft, data loss, reputations issues or even legal penalties.

 

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GFI Software Enhances its Security Product Offering with the Acquisition of Sunbelt Software

The company’s VIPRE technology will allow GFI to offer its own established antivirus product

Raleigh, NC – July 13, 2010 – GFI Software, a market leading provider of software infrastructure products for small and medium-sized enterprises, announced today that it has acquired Sunbelt Software and specifically its VIPRE® product suite. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition will allow GFI to merge VIPRE technology into GFI’s email security and web security solutions group, and will provide GFI with new security products consisting of world-class and innovative technology. The assets of Sunbelt’s software distribution business, started over 16 years ago and separate from the technology side of the company, will be divested into a separate entity and the company is exploring other strategic partnerships.

“Over the past several years, we have looked extensively for the best technologies, the best developers and the best management teams that will allow us to expand our current product offerings and to provide the best service we can to our customer base. We were impressed by the high quality and innovative technology that underlies Sunbelt’s VIPRE line of products and immediately saw strong synergies between the two companies. We have acquired a good, growing and cash-flow positive business that fits well within GFI’s strategic vision to consolidate our products and grow our business,” said Walter Scott, GFI’s CEO.

 

“Furthermore, Sunbelt’s technology is backed by a reliable, committed customer support team that provides great service – something so important for us. We see this investment in Sunbelt and its VIPRE technology as an excellent opportunity to increase our install base, drive the software globally through our international partner channel and also build our consumer market, which has a powerful drag-along effect on the SME and SoHo markets,” Mr. Scott added.

 

“The technologies developed by both companies are highly complementary and I have a hard time imagining a better combination,” said Alex Eckelberry, CEO of Sunbelt Software.  “Additionally, GFI and Sunbelt are rooted in similar business principles, with similar markets and a commitment to superlative customer service.”

 

About Sunbelt Software

Headquartered in Tampa Bay (Clearwater), Fla., USA, Sunbelt Software is a leading provider of Windows security software including enterprise antivirus, antispyware, email security, and malware analysis tools. Leading products include the VIPRE® and CounterSpy® product lines, Sunbelt Exchange Archiver™, CWSandbox™, and ThreatTrack™.

 

About GFI

GFI Software provides a single best source of web and mail security, archiving and fax, networking and security software and hosted IT solutions for small to medium-sized enterprises (SME) via an extensive global partner community. GFI products are available either as on-premise solutions, in the cloud or as a hybrid of both delivery models. With award-winning technology, a competitive pricing strategy, and a strong focus on the unique requirements of SMEs, GFI satisfies the IT needs of organizations on a global scale. The company has offices in the United States (North Carolina and California), UK (London and Dundee), Austria, Australia, Malta, Hong Kong and Romania, which together support hundreds of thousands of installations worldwide. GFI is a channel-focused company with thousands of partners throughout the world and is also a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.

 

 

To view this release online, go to:

http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Press/Releases/?id=362

 

For more information:

GFI Software

Please email David Kelleher on dkelleher@gfi.com

GFI – Malta: Tel: +356 2205 2000; Cell: +356 7906 3606; Fax: +356 21382419.

URL: http://www.gfi.com.

 

Sunbelt Software

Please email Brian Alberti on sunbelt@daviesmurphy.com

Sunbelt – US: Tel: +1-781-418-2403

URL: http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com.

 

 

Handy Backup Server – reliable backup solution for enterprise network

 

How to backup server and the whole corporative network?

 

The award-winning server backup software by Novosoft LLC Handy Backup Server is designed specially for centralized backup of enterprise networks. The program consists of a server part and client workstations. This software works well on windows server backup (including Windows 2008, 2003, 2000 Server), performing client server backup scheme.

 

To protect your business from loss of critical data and to set you free from routine actions like manual backup and sync, Handy Backup Server has the following features:

 

• Centralized backup. This can help you to organize the best backup management. All backup operations in the network can be performed by one person from the central server. Your employees may even be not aware that their work is backed up!
• Database backup. Handy Backup Server has a wide range of functions for database backup. The utility is able to run backup of most popular ODBC-compatible databases: MS SQL Server backup, MySQL, DB2, Oracle, InterBase backup and other.
• Exchange server backup. Microsoft Exchange mail server is used by most companies today, which means that a lot of important data is stored in Exchange Server. Handy Backup Server will allow you to easily back up, synchronize and restore email, calendars and other data.
• Backup to FTP server. There’s no doubt that remote data storage is more secure than a local one. This program will help you to back up your data to FTP/SFTP server – either your own or the special backup server in a secure data center.
• Automatic backup. The flexible scheduler gives you an opportunity to run your backup tasks automatically with any suitable period of time.
• Windows service. Handy Backup Workstations run as windows service, providing the administrator access to back up all users’ data without them being logged in.
• Multi-threaded backup engine provides fast backups without interfering users’ activity.
• One-way and two-ways synchronization. You can easily synchronize folders and files between computers in the network.
• Encryption, compression, masks, filtering. These and many other additional functions will help you to achieve the perfect backup strategy without any difficulties.

 

About Novosoft

 

Novosoft LLC was established in 1992. During the years of successful work this company has gained a good reputation and recognition of users throughout the world. Today Novosoft LLC is a prominent developer of computer and server backup software for home users as well as for small and middle-sized enterprises. The key product of the company – Handy Backup – is present in three major editions meeting every user’s needs: Handy Backup Standard, Handy Backup Professional and Handy Backup Server. Depending on individual needs there are different customer solutions based on flexible plug-in system.

 

To learn more about Handy Backup Server functionality please visit the official website www.handybackup.net.

 

A free 30-days trial including all features is here: Download Handy Backup Server.

 

 

Submit a Threat Sample – Is a New Service from VirusExperts.org

 

Now you can submit to us sample of  suspected or unwanted viruses or software then we will analyze it and  reply back  with the removal tool or post about how to remove it in Removal Tools Section.

 

To submit a threat sample Click Here

 

Note : Some of removals way will broadcast live at http://www.livestream.com/virusexperts (VirusExperts live TV).