Safe From Viruses And Malware

ExchangeDefender protects your mail from viruses, trojans, malware and spyware by:

• Using six leading antivirus engines from different antivirus vendors..
• Scanning each message along with its attachments..
• Intelligent attachment management engine with MIME checks..
• Attachment integrity testing for file type/extension/modification..
• Scanning an extensive database of known spyware & adware definitions..
• Sender throttling automatically controlled by domain and email address..
• Internal IP database with sender reputations and recent activity..

In effect, the most sophisticated cloud-based protection mixing reputable third party antivirus technology with internal controls that learn from the experience of processing millions of messages every hour.

Commercial Antivirus Engines

ExchangeDefender uses up to six antivirus engines to scan each incoming message and its attachments because no two virus engines are the same. For example, some antivirus engines can detect more than just virus signatures and provide protection from malware, trojans and other online threats. More importantly, not all virus engines use the same virus signatures. Each antivirus engine lab has its own research department, its own honeypot network (list of email addresses and hosts used to collect random mail from the Internet to establish a sample of threats being sent around) and consequently some antivirus engines can detect viruses before others.

ExchangeDefender currently uses F-Secure, TrendMicro, Kapersky, McAfee, Antigen, ClamAV and Sophos antivirus engines to process all incoming mail. We scan each message and attachment simultaneously by all available engines. Our policy engine is flexible enough to search within archived attachments (.zip, .rar, .arj) and eliminate threats that try to bypass antivirus engines.

Community Spyware Databases

As web browsers have increased their effectiveness in blocking spyware accessible over the web, hackers and spammers have turned to distributing spyware via email. ExchangeDefender uses several community spyware databases and a commercial subscription network to provide the same level of spyware protection for the email as is available on the desktop.

Throttled Malware & Trojan Control

Malware & trojan distribution relies on the speed at which it is able to infect remote networks. Over the years malware, trojans and worms have morphed into almost an indistinguishable rolling threat but their core characteristic has remained the rapid distribution of identical messages. ExchangeDefender has a built in identification system that tracks the message & attachment MD5 checksums and responds by temporarily delaying messages that match the bulk-mail criteria. Additionally, the system is always monitored for unusual activity as it is very unusual to process millions of messages with the same attachment name, size and checksum across the Internet.

Malware Attachment Filtering & Sanitation

The days of text-only SPAM are long gone. Today SPAM is distributed as a PDF, zip file, image, even an audio file! At the same time we use our email as more of a file sharing mechanism than a communications platform. Consequently, it is very important to understand the attachment type and what type of a threat it poses. ExchangeDefender analyzes attachments on multiple layers, using checks for file names, file types, MIME headers and archives to assure we apply your corporate policy to all attachments.

There are literally thousands of different ways that spammers and hackers have been trying to bypass security systems over the past decade. First came the Microsoft Windows exploits related to long filenames. Then mismatched extensions. Followed by dangerous attachments encapsulated in archives. Finally, the culmination of it all - forged MIME headers, extensions, multiple extensions, etc. Attachment sanitation plays an incredible part of ExchangeDefender functionality because in addition to protecting your mail flow it also reduces it signinficantly. Email messages tend to be several kilobytes in size while attachments can range in hundreds or thousands of that - multiplied by a few thousand messages a day that results in a degredation of both the bandwidth and the performance of the destination mail server. ExchangeDefender helps return those resources back to you, upwards of 80% of the inbound mail is never even reviewed for junk content by its recipients.