Mail Security


Mail Security has become a huge area of concern for all businesses as the use of messaging has grown. The more mail access methods a company provides for their employees the more areas they have to ensure are secure from rogue users. In addition the content of mail has become increasingly important as Spam usage continues to grow and companies have to ensure they are not sending or receiving illegal or offensive mail.

Mail Security can be addressed in three key areas client, server and perimeter. These considerations are over and above standard security that should be in place provided by domain functionality and desktop and server hardening.




Client Considerations

For Outlook clients there is the ability to block email attachments that are susceptible to viruses. The list below outlines areas that will need to be addressed:

  • Outlook connectivity across the Internet for remote, mobile or home users

  • Outlook Web Access secure connectivity

  • Client PC Anti Virus

  • Client Junk Mail Filters

  • Mobile Device lockdown

  • Mobile Device Anti Virus

  • Mobile Device Remote Reset - in case of loss or theft

Embrionic can offer advice and guidance for your organisation based on the experience we have gained implementing these solutions for our customers.


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Mail Server Security

Exchange Servers are locked down by default when installed on Windows Server 2003 servers but the following areas should also be considered:

  • Further server lock down based on requirements / business standards

  • Store level Anti Virus

Not all these areas will be necessary for your organisation and some options can be met by one or more products or are built in to Exchange 2003. Embrionic can provide guidance on how you should eliminate these security threats.


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Perimeter Security

With regards to perimeter security we can offer consultancy in Microsoft Internet Security and Accelerator (ISA) Server 2004 to provide your users with secure remote working Outlook Web Access, RPC over HTTP and Exchange Active Sync. Our consultants also have experience in numerous third party anti-spam and anti-virus products to address these areas:

  • Centralised Whitelist / Blacklist management

  • Centralised Content Scanning

  • Centralised Spam filters

Over and above the product functionality you get straight out of the box there is additional spam filtering now available from the Microsoft Exchange Intelligent Message Filter.


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Exchange Intelligent Message Filter

The Exchange Intelligent Message Filter scans the textual content of inbound messages from the Internet. Based on this content a rating is assigned to the message the rating equates to the probability that the message is unsolicited commercial email (UCE) and when passing through the Intelligent Message Filter this rating is added to the properties of the message. It is known as the spam confidence level (SCL) rating.

Through configuration of Intelligent Message Filter, an administrator can set two thresholds to determine how the filter handles these types of email messages. These thresholds are set at the gateway, typically the location at where the messages enter Exchange, and the mailbox store. Thus, for messages with a retry higher than the gateway threshold, the configured actions are applied these actions include Archive, Delete, No Action and Reject. However, messages having a rating less than the gateway threshold are sent to the recipients mailbox store. If the message has a rating higher than the mailbox store threshold, the message is delivered to the recipients Junk e-mail filter and not their Inbox, whilst if the rating is lower the message is delivered to the recipients Inbox.

The Intelligent Message Filter is a free add-on to Microsoft Exchange Server. If you are already checking for spam then why not try it to see how you anti-spam solution is performing.


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