ExchangeDefender Mass Password Reset
ExchangeDefender has always been a great friend to the SMB community where folks hate passwords and password complexity right until the moment their password gets compromised. Once that happens, it’s up to the MSP or poor IT guy to sit around and reset all the passwords in the organization.
As mentioned previously, a number of ExchangeDefender Enterprise features is being delivered to ExchangeDefender Pro so now you’ll have the ability to reset every single users password quickly.
Under the domain login you will now see a “Security Reset” link that will allow you to either randomly assign a strong password (smart) and send your users a reset link or pick the same password for all users (outright idiotic but “business requirements”).
If you are an MSP assisting a client during an outage and this is the first time you’re making your users aware of ExchangeDefender LiveArchive for business continuity, you can also print out the passwords and/or email them to your users in plain text. This is a horrible, terrible, idiotic, really bad idea that virtually guarantees you’re going to get hacked but we are here to serve and Howard is a really good friend so here it is:
Just a word of warning: If you select to send your users a new password in clear text, and show the roster with the plain text password on the next page, for whatever ungodly reason, please add a note to come back later and lock your users down. Most MSPs keep the same password for ExchangeDefender and Exchange, and these services also affect ExchangeDefender Encryption, LiveArchive, WebFileShare, Compliance Archive, eDiscovery, FailPOP, mobile, etc and leave you open for collateral damage. Unless you’re using 2FA/OTP, restricting IP address ranges, rotating passwords frequently, I can guarantee that your passwords will be compromised. Please, please, please don’t do this, we are only making it available as the feature of last resort.
As we add these advanced security controls into ExchangeDefender Pro (and some even for Essentials) we will be tightening the security of the platform around. To hear more about our plan for 2019, please sign up for the webinar on February 6th at noon EST. Click the banner below to reserve your seat.
Introducing ExchangeDefender Security Audit Logs
ExchangeDefender launches New Security Logs
I have some great news – ExchangeDefender security logs are now available for all users of ExchangeDefender. This move is a part of our larger security ambition for 2019 to introduce Enterprise features of ExchangeDefender across our lower MSP, SMB and retail tiers in order to improve service security.
One of the biggest things in 2019 is the end of the era for plain text passwords. People love them, MSPs rely on them, they are super convenient for everyone including… the hackers that are looking to break in. But more on that in a minute.
The single simplest way to stay on top of account security… is identifying break-in attempts. ExchangeDefender Enterprise logs every event, login, escalation (and so, when you as the enterprise administrator or organization owner choose to automatically login as the user for support purposes) attempt.
We’re happy to bring this feature in across both the service provider, domain and user login. Free of charge.
As the admin or service provider you also have the ability to search the account log for specific user or address that is causing problems. In the Enterprise version you have the ability to further lock things down based on IP, location, charset, and more. But if/when there is an issue, you can clearly see if the account has been compromised. At all other times, you can see login failures that are a good indication that there is a problem.
This feature, and a whole lot more, is coming down to the ExchangeDefender SMB land. While all these features were a premium in the past, the extent to which everything from your PC and the network devices that surround you are susceptible to compromise – we have to treat these features as what they are – essential to your security. As a matter of fact, we’ll be discussing this next Wednesday in our webinar:
When:
Noon, Wednesday, February 6th
Where:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4562047862967330307
Hope to see you there.
Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek
CEO
ExchangeDefender
ExchangeDefender launches 2 Factor Auth / OTP Service
Introducing ExchangeDefender 2 Factor Authentication / One Time Password Service
ExchangeDefender Pro is proud to announce the launch of a free 2 factor authentication / one time password service that will help our users better protect their ExchangeDefender accounts. Most people use the same password everywhere and if your password is compromised anyone can login from anywhere – what 2FA/OTP service enables you to do is use your cell phone as a secondary ID check.
When you login to ExchangeDefender, the system will immediately text you a 4 digit PIN to your cell phone. This way even if someone were to guess or steal your password, they will not be able to login without having access to your cell phone as well.
As we blogged about implementing advanced password security, plain text passwords are a thing of the past and the whole universe is moving towards having that additional layer of security to make sure unauthorized changes aren’t being made.
This is why we are making ExchangeDefender 2FA/OTP free for ExchangeDefender Pro and it works at all three levels – Service Provider, Domain administrator (domain.com login) and individual end user accounts at https://admin.exchangedefender.com. Once you’ve authenticated with a PIN on the top level you will not need to re-authenticate in order to manage and support your MSP clients or the end users so by all means enable it for everyone.
We hope you enjoy this feature and start relying on it, don’t worry this is no bait and switch, we do not intend to start charging for it down the road – it’s all about improving security and keeping our clients protected. It’s just what we do!
Dealing with Newsletter and Subscription bombs
Dealing with Newsletter and Subscription bombs
ExchangeDefender now protects you from malicious subscriptions to newsletters and emails you never opted into through “Subscription (Newsletter) Bomb Protection” available at admin.exchangedefender.com. By enabling the feature all newsletter “CAN-SPAM” “legitimate sender” content that you don’t want in your mailbox will automatically be filtered out as SureSPAM by ExchangeDefender.
The Bomb Issue
Hackers are currently exploiting security issues in newsletter software that allows them to add your email address to a mailing list without validation. If you’ve signed up for anything recently you know that you’re generally sent a confirmation email to validate you own the email address — well, hackers have found a way to add your email to the list without that step. Repeated thousands of times, it gives hackers a way to blow up your mailbox through a broadcast storm by otherwise legitimate senders who cannot tell your email address from thousands of others on their mailing list.
The ExchangeDefender Solution
ExchangeDefender already has a built-in newsletter management software (where you can have all of your newsletters skip your inbox and be available for reading online). We can effectively quarantine all the newsletters for you and allow you to read them online without them hitting your inbox and putting you over the quota. With the Subscription Bomb protection we go an extra step and outright classify these newsletters you haven’t subscribed to as SureSPAM. You can still access them but they won’t bother you or damage your Inbox or productivity.
There are 3 options:
Enabled: Protection is turned on and any newsletter will be flagged as SureSPAM. We do not recommend this option as it will catch all newsletters, whether you’ve subscribed to them or not.
Disabled: No protection. This is the default setting at the moment for all domains.
Whitelisted: Protection from newsletters but whitelisted ones will still get through. This allows you to have the best of both worlds: protection from newsletters you didn’t subscribe to but newsletters you want and have whitelisted will still come through. On January 1, 2019 this will be the default setting.
What do I tell my clients?
ExchangeDefender can now protect you from SPAM being generated by legitimate newsletter and subscription providers – if someone steals your identity (your email address, name, etc) they can subscribe you to newsletters without your knowledge or permission. Because the sending and management of these lists is automated, hackers can get an innocent third party to send you thousands of newsletters to clog up your inbox, make you wait for your email to download, and just make your email experience miserable.
ExchangeDefender can detect newsletters and “legitimate marketing emails” with unsubscribe or newsletter control keywords and automatically filter it out from you. Messages aren’t gone, you can still access them through admin.exchangedefender.com in realtime and on demand, but your Inbox will stay clean.
ExchangeDefender Office Macro (OLE) Dangerous Content Filtering
ExchangeDefender Office Macro (OLE) Dangerous Content Filtering
ExchangeDefender now includes advanced protection from dangerous Microsoft Office macro code (OLE). Since usage of Office macro code is very limited (and seldom moved via email) it’s almost universally used as an attack vector by hackers who send malicious macro code embedded in Microsoft Office documents that target vulnerabilities in Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and more.
Specifically, our service scans the following attachments for the presence of dangerous, encrypted, malformed, malicious, or suspicious code: doc,dot,pot,ppa,pps,ppt,sldm,xl,xla,xls,xlt,xslb,docm,dotm,ppam,potm,ppst,ppsm,pptm,sldm,xlm,xlam,xlsb,xlsm, and xltm. If we detect something suspicious or dangerous the message will not be destroyed or quarantined (as is the case with virus or infected attachments) – rather we just filter it to SureSPAM.
Managing Your OLE Protection
We will start strictly enforcing macro protection on January 1, 2019. However, the feature is available now and can be enabled at any time by going to https://admin.exchangedefender.com and logging in as a domain administrator (if you don’t see the setting, you aren’t logging in with your domain account but your personal or service provider account).
Click on Configuration > Policies > Phishing Options.
At the bottom of the form you will see “ExchangeDefender Office Macro Protection” section that is currently (October 2018) set to Off. The following options are available:
Off – Turns off ExchangeDefender Office Macro (OLE) protection
On – Turns on the protection but whitelisting the domain/email will bypass it
Strict – Turns on the protection and ignores whitelists
ExchangeDefender recommends this setting be configured as Strict in order to protect from spoofing where clients own domain or vendor (that doesn’t have SPF/DKIM implemented) address is used to deliver a dangerous attachment. Using “Strict” setting bypasses whitelist checks so if the message contains dangerous content it will automatically go into SureSPAM even if the domain is whitelisted.
What do I tell the users?
First, set the setting to Strict. Then, adjust the date in the message below and make sure SureSPAM settings are set to Quarantine.
“Starting with January 1, 2019, ExchangeDefender will protect you from dangerous attachments that contain rarely used Microsoft Office macro (OLE) code. If dangerous macro code is detected in an attachment, message will go into SureSPAM category and if configured to quarantine the message will be accessible at https://admin.exchangedefender.com in the SureSPAM quarantine. We have enabled the protection for you. If you ever see a familiar contact/domain but you were not expecting the message, it’s likely being spoofed/forged in order to trick you to click on a dangerous attachment. Take an extra step and contact the sender asking them if they sent you a document. If not, delete the message.”
We hope this helps keep your users more secure and in our production use so far it’s helping stop 100% of dangerous content
Exchange 2016 Designed for Small Business
ExchangeDefender is in it’s final stage of Exchange 2016 migration which means tons of small business users are about to experience Exchange 2016 for the first time (coming from 2010, 2013 and even a few 2007 / virtualized SBS folks). While there are tons of advantages and features in 2016, nearly all of them are related to the back end/IT that will make your Exchange/Outlook experience much better. Yes, I can hear you yawning. 🙂
SIMPLICITY
The most exciting thing about ExchangeDefender on Exchange 2016 is the extent to which we have templated, wizarded, and simplified the management of an Exchange 2016 organization – we’ve written tons of control panels and wizards that will make ordinary users as powerful as IT people with a ton of PowerShell experience. As a matter of fact, our Exchange 2016 UI will be on sale shortly as a separate product. All the cool stuff you read about Exchange 2016 is only accessible via PowerShell and coding, something that even an overwhelming majority of trained IT staff aren’t capable of doing effortlessly.
We looked at the Microsoft Exchange platform, surveyed our users, looked at all the tickets and requests we’ve had since the 2016 launch and we built a simple, easy to use, non-IT guy friendly way of managing Exchange 2016 and all it’s new features. This means that for an average organization, ExchangeDefender Exchange 2016 will be the most powerful platform they can get.
FLEXIBILITY
Microsoft has really changed the game in Exchange 2016 with massive improvements around the web – from MAPI over HTTP to Outlook on the Web. Outlook on the web will turn your web browser into something as similar and almost as powerful as your desktop Outlook application. In fact, all ExchangeDefender employees currently use Outlook on the Web as their primary email interface because the search component is flawless and we already spend the entire day in the browser.
MAPI over HTTP component is truly solid and will hopefully eliminate a ton of problems that 2003/07/10/13 users had with configuring their Outlook initially. With the new setup and autodiscover, apps will be able to quickly locate the right server and keep connecting even when there are backend maintenance or outage scenarios. So far so good though, 2016 has been rock solid leading us to..
RELIABILITY
As everyone that’s ever had to deal with Outlook and Exchange will tell you, it’s reliable but when you have an issue it’s usually big – well, not anymore. With better implementation of multiple roles, Managed Store, expanding archives and SharePoint Foundation Search the new version of Exchange can handle larger mailboxes, provide faster searches and assure smooth operation in event of failure.
We have been leveraging Expanding Archives to provide bigger (archived mail) mailboxes while making the recent messages on entirely different storage. The results are phenomenal and you will notice the difference immediately.
Everyone with an AutoDiscover record can be moved on demand, if you don’t have an auto discover record you will need to create one for your domain and point it to autodiscover.xd.email – beyond that Outlook will handle everything just requiring the user to run an online “repair” that takes just a few moments and doesn’t require downloading all of the email, creating a new profile, re-configuring everything and so on. If you don’t have an auto-discover yet you will need it – there is no more “manual” configuration.
We truly look forward to getting all of our clients on 2016 as fast as possible and have additional staff, documents, and resources to make this a successful move for everyone. Once moved, the power of our UI and management infrastructure will give you more flexibility over the Exchange management and implementation while also allowing you to run things without PowerShell, hacking or putting things together. That in fact is our biggest competitive advantage: You don’t need to be in IT to manage your email.
ExchangeDefender Introduces Friendly Display Names
Friendly Names, Finally.
You’ve only been waiting 20 years for this feature and we’re happy to finally deliver it: ExchangeDefender will now show friendly display names and email addresses, giving you a better idea of who the email sender is.
This is a slightly technical pragraph that we encourage you to skip. Every email you receive has two From: addresses. One is a “friendly from” or “header from” address that prints the name of the sender as the user configured it inside their mail software such as Outlook or Gmail. The other is an “envelope from” or “mail from / return path from” address that is used for mailer/postmaster reasons to bounce and process messages. As an email security solution, ExchangeDefender only looks at and reports envelope addressing as the friendly from can easily be spoofed and faked and generally has no impact on the underlying SPAM filtering technology, message routing, SPF/DKIM, and a myriad of other technical reasons. Two decades ago, when ExchangeDefender was first and foremost meant to be a front line defense on the edge/perimeter before allowing traffic to get to the firewall, envelope from was what I went with.
What made sense two decades ago, which is centuries in IT terms, doesn’t make sense in 2018. Today ExchangeDefender is no longer primarily an edge security service, it is prime real estate in which end users and business employees spend a considerable amount of their time managing their mail, sending documents, sending encrypted attachments, assuring compliance, collaborating, and as such the design and the content needs to show something relevant to the user (not the IT administrator power user that is likely managing things through our powerful Domain Administrator section).
Oh, and by the way, it’s also going to show up like this in our updated SPAM Reports starting in October for our ExchangeDefender Pro subscribers:
P.S. Please tune into our new feature webinar on Wednesday, October 17th, 2018 at noon EST. Lot’s of new features are coming in ExchangeDefender as we transform the product to better serve the compliance and security needs of our clients. Register Now!
New Feature: Encryption Enrollment Account Reset
ExchangeDefender Encryption Enrollment Account Reset
Encryption is hot – with daily news of hackers breaking in or compromising one system after another, taking that extra step to make sure your information is safe and secure has never been on the minds of business owners more. We may sound like a broken record when it comes to encryption but it is one of our more popular products and today we’re happy to announce another quick feature that is coming.
October 1st: You can now reset your recipients accounts (PIN+Password) in Corporate Encryption.
ExchangeDefender Corporate Encryption has an alternate [ENCRYPT] flag that can allow the users to encrypt messages on demand and require the recipient to enroll in the ExchangeDefender Corporate Encryption in order to access the message. Enrollment process is quick and simple and requires the recipient to provide their name and phone number along with a selection of a password and a 4 digit PIN. This additional security step is put in place to eliminate man in the middle attacks where a hacker may have compromised the firewall, disgruntled employee is trying to spy on inbound mail, or a variety of other threatening issues. It is the ultimate layer of protection because PIN is only known to the user.
If you support ExchangeDefender Corporate Encryption, you’re going to like this feature a lot because you’ve likely had to deal with the inevitable case of a recipient forgetting both their password and their PIN. Since we have no way to verify the users identity, we’ve always processed reset requests manually. Now, this process is automated.
Just go to admin.exchangedefender.com and login as the domain administrator. If you subscribe to Corporate Encryption you will see it under the Configuration menu. Simply type in the recipients email address and their account at ExchangeDefender will be reset allowing them to enroll again.
As a security precaution, they will not be able to see emails sent to them prior to the enrollment period – only new messages after they have created their account. On the backend, there are additional checks in order to make sure that this is actually a user that receives email from your domain, etc, etc so we don’t open the door to a malicious ExchangeDefender client attempting to reset accounts of unknown contacts. Obviously there is far more going on in the background that we cannot disclose in a blog post but if you’re interested in the technology, we have patents pending on several of these and would be happy to discuss privately.
There you have it, October 1st. Another cool feature that will save a lot of time for our users while keeping everyone just a little bit safer. We’re adding more features all over the place so please stay tuned to our blog and our Facebook page.
ExchangeDefender Encryption Positioning
Email encryption is on the rise, ExchangeDefender offers two types of encryption.
Corporate Encryption
ExchangeDefender Encryption (Corporate Encryption) has been one of our hottest products for years, the demand for it is fueled by daily news of exploits, hacking, data theft and so on. Just last night, one of the largest retailers in the world was exploited and for over a month hackers stole credit cards and client information. This sort of daily reporting is creating an unprecedented demand for encryption products, with Let’s Encrypt becoming the largest SSL certificate issuer on the planet.
One thing remains, if the data you are sending or receiving is sensitive to you it’s your responsibility and best interest to assure it is protected.
When it comes to email encryption things get a bit more confusing, complicated, fragmented and unclear. One thing remains, if the data you are sending or receiving is sensitive to you it’s your responsibility and best interest to assure it is protected. Whether you’re the sender or the recipient. Unfortunately, email alone isn’t secure enough by design and <big deal>it is the most exploited and hacked medium available.</bigdeal> . Why hack a bank when I can hack your mailbox and get all your accounts, credentials, reset mechanisms, notes, private information and more?
This is where ExchangeDefender, and ExchangeDefender Encryption, become such a big deal and such a valuable <i>service</i> for your business. You can exchange emails back and forth securely, without installing any software, without requiring the recipient to install any software. Your still use your same email program, desktop, mobile phone, tablet – but your information goes from point to point in an encrypted and protected process. Not just that but you get things you typically can’t get from IT – knowing when the message was was received, when it was read, how many times it’s been read, and you get a reply in the same secure way.
Request your complimentary branded marketing collateral. Looking for something else? Give us your feedback.
It’s clear to see how easy and essential selling ExchangeDefender Encryption is: but you can’t show up empty handed. We have marketing collateral available for our partners – Click on the PDF to download.Â
ExchangeDefender Introduces New SPAM Reports
SPAM Email Reports
ExchangeDefender SPAM Email Reports remain one of our most popular features and after nearly 6 years since the last major revision we’re looking to improve both the value and the functionality. For many of our end users, ExchangeDefender is the sole provider of cyber security training and information – so the responsibility of better educating our clients on the threats they are likely to face via email and web is crucial.
Then there is the look and feel of it. White collar workforce has largely gone away from dual monitor configurations to smaller portable devices on which users don’t spend the whole day in Outlook – so our email reports that were designed for the Microsoft desktop era needed a little face lift.
New ExchangeDefender SPAM Email Reports are launching on October 1st 2018 and we’ve made several significant changes to the look and feel based on user feedback.
– New reports feature “friendly” From addresses, instead of the actual From: line we’ve always used.
– Contrast has been improved as well as spacing, so finding information in the email is much simpler.
– Font size, padding, colors, etc has been modernized as well, allowing the report to look amazing on both small phone screens and large wide-screen computer displays.
On the backend, our reports and email release requests are starting to embed our support at the point of release, making sure our end users get exactly what they are expecting right away. If the message isn’t displaying correctly, or if it cannot be located, or if the message is continuously ending up in the SPAM quarantine even though the user believes they whitelisted it (99.999999999% they whitelist the disposable from tracking email which changes every time a message is sent, instead of whitelisting the domain) – our support will be there to assist them immediately without picking up a phone, without opening up a support ticket, without escalating it to the office manager or creating additional work. On demand service #ftw.
Our mission to help protect our clients from dangerous and malicious content also has to account for threats before they become problems – which is why we’re investing in training and info collateral aimed at the users so they are aware of new ways hackers are trying to exploit them. This info will be featured prominently in the service and we will cover it in detail as we ramp up production but for the time being we understand our end users have limited time and limited interest in what is going on in the world of cyber crime – so we will limit our content to 140 characters and feature relevant stuff only, nothing commercial.
If you have any suggestions or ideas for our Email SPAM Reports, please do not hesitate to let us know.