What is E-Mail Guard? E-Mail Guard is Progent's affordable managed service solution that gives small businesses enterprise-quality defense against spam, viruses, directory harvesting and other types of email-borne attacks on IT networks. E-Mail Guard is based on Postini's Perimeter Manager, a comprehensive suite of web-managed services that ward off email attacks before they can penetrate the corporate firewall. Perimeter Manager also enables administrators to monitor and manage their email systems, regardless of server vendor type, hardware platform or geographic location.
E-Mail Guard uses Postini's top-rated filtering and detection engine for quickly identifying and disposing of damaging messages, without producing a high number of false positives. E-Mail Guard can filter both inbound and outbound email and attachments and also offers disaster recovery to provide business continuity in case your email server is temporarily disabled.
How does spam hurt my business?
With spam now accounting for two out of three email messages, failing to control spam can seriously degrade the business value of your IT network by lowering productivity, slowing system performance, distracting IT management, and adding stress to the work environment. Hard costs include storage of unwanted email and the expense of IT management time, but a potentially significant additional cost is the possibility of hostile work environment lawsuits.
How does E-Mail Guard identify spam?
Most spam blocking techniques use reference database methodologies that match incoming messages to spam profiles that are based on previously received spam messages. To evade detection, spammers find creative ways to make each spam message look unique. E-Mail Guard relies on Postini's patented Threat Identification Network™ (PTIN), which analyzes the content of each message based on its individual characteristics, even if the message doesn’t fit the profile of previous spam messages.
Postini’s anti-spam engine utilizes thousands of heuristics-based expressions designed to check specific parts of every message from the IP level through the message content. The engine identifies a message as spam by correlating the results of various spam filters that are triggered by an email. Postini is able to analyze the source plus all text and HTML parts of each message before passing through clean messages to your email server. Postini's technology improves the detection of spam and reduces the incidence of "false positives."
For a discussion of the architecture of Postini's Email Processing Data Centers click here.
What are the advantages of a Managed Service to fight spam? E-Mail Guard uses the Managed Service Provider (MSP) approach to blocking spam because this allows protection to begin at the place of origin of spam and viruses — the Internet. The MSP solution stops suspicious email before it reaches your company’s network. Spam solutions deployed at the network gateway or at the workgroup server expose networks and servers to malicious attacks and bandwidth-hogging junk email. Postini’s implementation of managed service is also uniquely able to intercept Directory Harvest Attacks (DHAs), which can only be done in the SMTP connection stream at the Internet gateway.
Managed services are also the most cost-effective defense against unwanted or malicious email. Unlike software or appliance solutions, managed services require virtually no integration and can be deployed in as little as a few days. Once deployed there is minimal maintenance needed and updates are made continually and automatically, at no extra charge. Managed services also offer unlimited scalability and flexibility to meet your evolving needs. The costs of managed services, based on a consistent monthly fee, are also more predictable and less risky than alternative spam blocking solutions. Managed services can be discontinued as quickly as they are deployed, with no disruption of business.
Filtering spam inside the corporate firewall can be both risky and time consuming. With all internal solutions, spam and viruses are allowed to enter an enterprise before any protective action takes place. As a result, the corporate email server is burdened with processing and storing unwanted messages until they can be handled. In addition to storage and bandwidth costs, an internal solution usually requires conscientious monitoring and maintenance by IT staff. Daily responsibility for administration, maintenance and upgrades can become a time-consuming burden to corporate IT departments. MSPs can update spam profiles and virus libraries on an hourly basis. Small business IT departments have neither the time nor the personnel to match this effort. Automatic solutions for spam and virus filtering are becoming essential because any lapse in execution makes your network vulnerable to attack.
Using the desktop to block spam requires touching every desktop with software, providing training, and placing the responsibility of controlling spam filtering policies in the hands of end-users. This cuts down productivity, allows inconsistency in adherence to corporate email policy, and could open multiple doors to malicious email-borne attacks.
Hardware appliances for spam filtering require an up-front hardware and implementation investment and are difficult to customize. In addition, reliability and scalability can be expensive because you may have to purchase multiple appliances to ensure redundancy as your organization grows.
Spam solutions based on email servers, like any solution based inside the firewall, allow unwanted email onto internal systems before it is classified and dropped or quarantined.
Why does E-Mail Guard use Postini as its preferred MSP?
Gartner Research has recognized Postini as the number one spam filtering Managed Service Provider (MSP) with respect to the ability to execute. Postini’s administrative tools were recently cited by PC Magazine as the most advanced of any of the corporate anti-spam solutions they have reviewed, and in Network World's test of 16 anti-spam products Perimeter Manager scored the highest in accuracy for catching spam and delivered the lowest false-positive rate. Postini processes over 1 billion messages weekly for over 2,700 customers and serves over 5 million end-users. The high volume of email processed makes Postini’s heuristic filtering engine continually more refined and efficient, and the company’s large customer base gives the Postini staying power that protects your investment in managed services.
Postini’s Perimeter Manager can also improve your email reliability and offers email business continuity in case your email server fails for any reason. Postini uses two data centers — the same ones used by Google, eBay and Yahoo — and guarantees an uptime of 99.999 percent, far higher than most small business email servers can achieve. If your email server stops working, Postini automatically stores all messages temporarily in a secure database for delivery once you’re back on line.
How does Progent’s E-Mail Guard add value to Postini?
Progent is a Postini aggregator and support specialist. If your business is too small to qualify for a standard Postini license, you can still have access to Postini’s Perimeter Manager services through Progent’s E-Mail Guard service program.
Program also can work with you to develop a comprehensive email security strategy that addresses spam and viruses. Progent can help you plan and implement a phased rollout of Postini’s services, select spam filters specific to department needs to reduce the risk of false positives, develop auditing and reporting practices, train your management, educate your end users on how to avoid spam and prevent virus propagation, and create an enforceable corporate email policy appropriate for your business goals.
Progent can upgrade, troubleshoot, and monitor your entire email and network infrastructure based on industry best practices and Progent’s extensive experience as certified Microsoft and Cisco experts.
What are Directory Harvest Attacks and how do you stop them?
Directory Harvest Attacks (DHAs) are scripted attempts designed to steal directory information from unprotected email servers. Spammers send messages with a generic address to your SMTP mail server. For example, spammers will try sending “ed@acme.com,” “sue@acme.com” or other names until the server recognizes a name and accepts a message. Spammers combine dictionaries of common names and tabulate which addresses work and which do not. The technique can yield an overwhelming number of delivery requests, consuming server processing power. Spammers then sell the compiled list of valid email addresses to other spammers, resulting in spam for new and unused accounts.
Many mail servers do not resolve directory addresses at the gateway and are configured to accept every message and then perform directory validation. Since most of the delivery attempts in a DHA are invalid, the server must generate thousands of bounced messages. Spammers typically attack from a temporary IP address and then move on. As a result, with nowhere to go, the bounced messages return again to the enterprise, further clogging the gateway.
To fight DHAs you need a solution that monitors your SMTP connections and protects your enterprise against attacks. Postini’s Perimeter Manager uses heuristics to identify patterns of behavior associated with DHAs. Analysis of the connection layer can provide greater visibility into mail flow and facilitate the accurate blocking of spammers’ IP addresses without inadvertently blocking traffic from a valid IP address.
Why can’t my firewall stop spam or Directory Harvest Attacks?
Corporate firewalls offer little or no protection against spam or Directory Harvest Attacks. Inbound email often passes through the firewall to your email server without regard for message content, message size or address, creating an opportunity for spam and viruses to enter and making your email system vulnerable to directory harvesting.
Does E-Mail Guard offer disaster recovery?
Because E-Mail Guard is a managed service using external data centers and pass-through filtering, disaster recovery and business continuity is a natural offshoot of its architecture. If your email server becomes unavailable for any reason, then undeliverable email is stored temporarily on a secured Postini data center. Postini will hold your undelivered email messages and attachments until your email server is back on line. In addition, Postini releases the stored email in measured increments, controlling data flow in order to avoid overloading your email server.
Do I have to buy or manage new hardware or software? E-Mail Guard requires the installation of no new hardware or software. Management, reporting and customization tools are web based, and no manual software updating is needed to stay current in protecting your email system against spam and viruses.
What email systems does E-Mail Guard work with? E-Mail Guard works with any email system and can be used to manage multiple email servers. Progent can provide high-level consulting expertise for networks that use some version of Microsoft Exchange or that have an email environment that combines Exchange with legacy email systems.
Why is email reporting important?
Email reporting provides IT management and support personnel with data for analyzing trends, forecasting network traffic, troubleshooting problems and monitoring adherence to corporate email policies. Perimeter Manager's monitoring and management tools are web based, making it easy for management to have detailed visibility of corporate email traffic.
What is involved in setting up E-Mail Guard? E-Mail Guard is a managed service, so it requires minimal integration and can be implemented quickly. You simply update your DNS records so that the MX records point to Postini for real-time pre-processing before mail is delivered to your destination server and your end-user’s inbox. If junk mail or virus-infected messages are detected, the messages can be tagged, delivered to an alternate mailbox or directed to a password-protected quarantine area for review and disposition. Mail delivery follows a conventional format that also lends itself to the automatic fail-over that is typical for any MX record. This allows you to take advantage of Postini’s secure data centers so that no messages are lost in case your email server fails.
How does E-Mail Guard impact email performance?
Unlike store-and-forward solutions that use standard email server technology, Postini’s patented email processing method allows messages to be processed in real-time as the packets flow through the Postini servers. This also ensures that Postini does not expose customer data to hackers or potential loss of data. Postini’s filters process all email with no direct human contact with mail flow or individual messages. Mail messages are processed within milliseconds and immediately passed through to your email server. This eliminates any perceptible latency.
Postini regularly instruments elapsed time of email flow through the process to ensure high standards of performance.
Does E-Mail Guard preserve email privacy? E-Mail Guard does not require users to provide personal contact or demographic information. Customers can deactivate services at any time by turning application settings off. Progent and Postini never sell or make available individual names, lists of users, or aggregate data to any third parties for gain. User configuration information provided to Postini is used explicitly to deliver services that match the client’s requirements and not for any other purpose. All user-specific information and email message information, including content, addresses, categorizations and IP addresses, is kept strictly confidential.
How Can I Get Help Now?
If your small business needs help with spam and virus filtering, email infrastructure, network security, IT outsourcing, or computer consulting services from a Progent technician or IT consultant:
Call 800-993-9400 or send email to exchange-help@progent.com
