Spam software

[jenlion]

Now that I've moved the email inside the company network, I can do something about the spam....

I have two choices: block at the firewall proxy (watchguard 700) with SpamScreen, or put something extra on the server. I like the idea of putting it on the firewall because then I won't tax the server with this extra software; however, it seems most people who use this product don't like it very much.

I've seen good things about GFI's products. Can anyone else recommend a good spam-stopping software?

(I haven't yet purchased antivirus for exchange, I will do that as soon as I decide which anti-spam software I will use. I have symantec corporate on all desktops, and I'm leaning towards their exchange AV for the mail server too).

Thanks!

 

[quell]

FYI: The content filter for NAV does not work on Exchange 5.5. It only works on Ex 2000

I would suggest not to purchase it if you want to block spam.

 

[Willis99]

I use Antigen for Exchang with Spam Manager. It uses up to 6 different antivirus engines (including Norton, Sophos, Kasperskey and Computer Associates.) Very thorough. Does a great job IMO.

Blocks stuff before it even enters the Exchange store.

A 30-day free trial is available.

http://www.sybari.com

 

[jenlion]

Quell, Yes, I am thinking of NAV for virus protection only, because I already know it does an excellent job. Then I would add an anti-spam product. If I find one product which does both of those things very well, then I'll buy only one product.

Willis, thanks, I'll check it out.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[devastator]

Try X-Wall. I run a WatchGuard Firebox 1000 with SPAMSCREEN and I run X-WALL on another server (not the exchange server though you can if you want to) which does RBL, WHITELISTING, SUBJECT, MESSAGE, HTML, BAYES, VERIFY, and a ton of other stuff for only $350.00.

Works great together.

http://www.dataenter.co.at/products/xwall.htm

Dev

 

[N0ktar]

I like the XWall, I installed it today ans it's doing a jood job. One thing though, do you have a lon analyzer for it? I'm using Sawmill for all of my reports but it does not seem to support it.

 

[ashleym]

I am using spamscreen with quite a few added rules and it works great. I have about 5 rbl servers that are quite 'clean' and they work quite well. You can also turn on attachment blocking on the smtp proxy of your firebox to block the common attachments used by virus's the .exe, .com, .bat, .pif, .scr etc. Be careful though as you have to explicitely allow attachments and some legitamate attachments may get blocked until you add them, its a bit of a learning process but its worth it. I have used Xwall as well, but find spamcreen better.

AM

 

[jasonboyes]

Take at look at Mail Warden. You can install it on a separate machine (I am not sure how). I am currently using this software and I like it.

http://www.mailwarden.com

Jason

Rich Cook -- "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."

 

[cmeagan656]

I use XWall and really like it. It uses very few cycles.

Excellent product and any requests to the developer (he's in Austria) are usually actioned within 24 huors. We had a =small= problem this morning, sent a request, and had a reply back asking for more info and logfile clips within 2 hours.

Excellent online support docs and logging too.

Check it out at:

http://www.dataenter.co.at/products/xwall.htm

 

[jenlion]

I'm trying out the X-Wall. It's cheaper than the alternative, which is symantec enterprise. I actually got approval for that one.

Can anyone compare X-wall to symantec enterprise, which includes antivirus, a separate anti-spam, and web page protection?

http://enterprisesecurity.symantec.com/products/products.cfm?ProductID=164&EID=0

I appreciate the posts!

 

[N0ktar]

Do you have a Log analyzer for XWall?

 

[devastator]

The best thing about X-wall is that you can group RBL servers together such as typing bl.spamcop.com,dnsbl.njabl.org (or whatever their rbls are, this is just an example) and a message has to be on both RBL servers to qualify as SPAM. SPAMSCREEN does not support this and some legit mails get blocked with more aggressive RBL servers. This way you can group two or more together and get very low false positives. That and for $350 it compliments SPAMSCREEN nicely. You really can't rely on just one filter to do it all. Have at least 2 and you will eliminate most SPAM at least to your users and set up another mailbox to receive the questionable ones for you to filter through. I get maybe 20-30 a day that I have to go through but I just turn off the "Mark message as read" in the preview pane options and shift+del all that are SPAM. I use the SMTP Proxy in WatchGuard for incoming filtering of attachments, SPAMSCREEN and less aggressive RBL's and of course the content filtering (which only scans subject not the actuall message content), then if it makes it past that it forwads to X-Wall which then runs its own tests on it and then forwards to our Exchange Server.

Works great.


Dev

 

[Marcs41]

jenlion, GFI has the antispam software too, mailessentials, also a 30 trial available, and many more nice features come with it.

http://www.gfi.com

Marc
[sub]If 'something' 'somewhere' gives 'some' error, expect random guesses or no replies at all. Please specify details.
Free Tip: The F1 Key does NOT destroy your PC![/sub]

 

[bobbys9]

Want to give XWALL a try. Installed it on a separate server. When I changed the setting in Exchange 5.5 to specify the xwall server to receive smtp, no mail was able to be sent out. Have a pix 616 firewall. There are conduits in there for pop3 and smtp that reference the address of mail. Any idea of what I have to do with the firewall to have the XWALL server work? Maybe a question for the PIX forum, but sounds like many of you have worked through setting up a spam filter. Thanks for help.

 

[devastator]

You may be correct in having to contact PIX since if that has some type of SMTP proxy you will have to point it to your X-wall product via NAT most likely.

Or you can check the X-wall forums.

http://www.xwall.us/phpBB2/index.php

 

[mrosenblum]

You might also want to look at Vircom's ModusGate software. We currently recieve over 25000 spams/viruses a day that are blocked by this software. It has been very reliable, and we are running it on a "white box" for all external emails.