How to use third party mail security gateway to scan internal/inter-domain mails in Exchange On-Premise?

[thirzanatasha]

Hi All,

In my existing exchange server on-premise environment, there’s a requirement for internal emails (e.g., a mail sent from jane.doe@xyz.com to john.doe@xyz.com) to be scanned by a third-party email security gateway that the company recently purchased. However, from what I understand, this might be impossible because all internal emails use the implicit Send connector named the intra-organization Send connector.

I would like to know if there is any way to edit or configure the intra-organization Send connector so that, instead of using the intra-organization Send connector, the Exchange On-Premise Server will use my custom/recently created connector. This way, all internal emails will be sent to the third-party email security gateway first, scanned, and have all policies applied before the gateway sends the scanned emails to the recipients within the same domain.

Alternatively, if there is another way to achieve my main goal—using a third-party email security gateway to scan internal emails instead of directly sending them and relying solely on the security of the Exchange Server On-Premise for internal mail protection—please let me know.

Thank you.

 

[DrB0b]

What third party mail security gateway are you planning on using?

 

[thirzanatasha]

Hi DrB0b,

It is Cisco Email Security On-Premise

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[DrB0b]

Unfortunately, everything I am seeing with ESA (Email security appliance aka Cisco Email Security on prem version) is this isnt possible. Since it is a local email account to the Exchange DB, you cannot force the email out a connector to route back to the same server. If you had a 365 Hybrid or full setup, this would be possible.

There is a boatload of other software you can install locally to the exchange server to analyze the internal emails and their behavior. Trend Business makes one, for example.

Ill keep poking around and see if there isnt some reg tweaking way you can make it work with your current setup but I do not have faith there is a good solution since products such as Trend exist.