Steps to Take with Exchange Anti-Spam and More

Irrespective of the size of your company, security is something that you need to take seriously. Let’s take email as an example. This important tool is used by nearly every business. But are your users, whether they number just five or 500, protected against various treats such as spam and malware?

There are many email servers that you can use, but perhaps the most common is Microsoft Exchange Server. The latest versions of Exchange Server have introduced a few basic anti-spam features, although these are generally designed for larger organizations as Microsoft recommends that anti-spam features should be run on an Edge Transport Server. Small businesses, however, are likely to have a smaller hardware setup that will not normally include an Edge Transport Server.

By following a few easy steps, it is actually possible to enable these anti-spam features, even if you only have a Hub Transport Server. How? This is how to do it when using Exchange 2010:

Step 1:

Open your Exchange Management shell.

Step 2:

Change your current directory to Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Scripts

Step 3:

Run install-AntispamAgents.ps1

If everything goes to plan you should receive some warnings regarding your MSExchangeTransport service needing a restart before changes take effect. This is perfectly normal and nothing to worry about.

Step 4:

When the command finishes executing, you next need to open your services console. You can find it by heading to the Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services. If you prefer you can take a shortcut and simply run services.msc. Now scroll down to Service: Microsoft Exchange Transport. Select it and click on the restart button.

Step 5:

It is time to confirm the setup is successful. First head to the Exchange Server 2010 Console. Then Expand Microsoft Exchange: Organization Configuration. Now select Hub Transport. You should have a new entry called anti-spam which previously was missing. This will allow you to configure your Exchange anti-spam features.

Third Party Software

Going with the built-in anti-spam features is only one of the options. If you would rather use a solution that has more advanced features and provides you with greater protection for your email infrastructure, you should be looking for software that offers antivirus scanning, heuristic analyses and even sandboxed systems. There are plenty of third party utilities which are easy to deploy, and they can be used to mitigate a larger portion of risk than the built in anti-spam features of Exchange 2010 can.

Deciding which third party anti-spam solution to use for your organization can also be a bit challenging. Different solutions support a range of anti-spam technologies, including:

·         Greylisting

·         SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

·         Anti-Spam Databases

·         DNSBL (DNS Block List)

·         Bayesian Analysis

·         Anti Phishing Databases

·         Antivirus

·         Heuristic Malware Analysis

·         Sandbox Malware Analysis

Cost and Budgets

When it comes to security it always boils down to costs and benefits. The more technologies you have to protect your network, the lower the risk that network will face problems due to malware infections, or one of your employees falling victim to social engineering attacks. Running a cost benefit analysis can help you to identify the amount of down time for the organization in the event of a malware infection or if your system is compromised.

Other risks you need to think about are hackers gaining access to your confidential information, or the abuse of network resources due to botnet installations, all of which can occur through malicious spam.

Once you have a good idea of the cost a malware infection to your organization, you put together a reasonable budget for the security of your email server. Even if your budget is extremely low, you can also follow the steps listed above to install the basic Exchange anti-spam features to get some protection.

This guest post was provided by Emmanuel Carabott 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. Learn more about third party solutions to use together with you Exchange anti-spam.

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

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