Best SPAM Solution

tech

HI all

I have a SBS 2003 server running Exchange, Im getting hammered with SPAM , I have over 60 e-mail address on this server

Hosting Company is pushing all mail to my Public IP address, I use SMTP mail

Whats the best SPAM solution out there at the moment?

Thanks

layke

Well the best on the market is a borderware box but i'm not sure it's in your price range :P

I assume you're looking for something that resides on the exchange server? If so something like brightmail works well for my cutomers and suprisingly something Symantec doesn't eat resources. Shocking I know.

If you're looking for something that will intercept the spam at the gateway Sybari may be your best option but I haven't used them since Microsoft bought them over so you'll need to research that one.

matt-dublin

for managed services we used to use message labs till we got taken over, by far the best solution i've seen.

now we're using ironport and outlook spam filtering.

check out messagelabs : www.messagelabs.co.uk

Static M.e.

Have you checked out the MS Hosted spam solution, where they filter all your email before it reaches you though a number of different spam & AV engines? I saw a demo and it looked great but we opted out because we are in the middle of our current agreement so it wasn't worth while to us financially.

We use a product here called Mail Marshal which I find very good, once you have the initial configuration done and added in all your text words\rules it runs very smoothly.

For instance we get ~ 100K emails per month to ~800 email addresses, 85% of which are spam. Yet every morning when I come in it only takes me 5 minutes or so to clear out the Spam folders. When I started it use to take me 45 minutes to an hour every morning. The Marshal forums and Support is also very good they know their stuff.

Stephen

We use message labs too, and they seem very good. It might be worth asking your hosting company if they can do spam filtering for you?

Saruman

Who is your hosting company? Many of them offer a monthly subsription to block spam before it gets to your server.
Hosting365 offers spamtitan for instance. There are many others out there and to be honest are a better solution than installing software on the server that might cause a crash and downtime.

layke

Static M.e. wrote: »

Have you checked out the MS Hosted spam solution, where they filter all your email before it reaches you though a number of different spam & AV engines? I saw a demo and it looked great but we opted out because we are in the middle of our current agreement so it wasn't worth while to us financially.

We use a product here called Mail Marshal which I find very good, once you have the initial configuration done and added in all your text words\rules it runs very smoothly.

For instance we get ~ 100K emails per month to ~800 email addresses, 85% of which are spam. Yet every morning when I come in it only takes me 5 minutes or so to clear out the Spam folders. When I started it use to take me 45 minutes to an hour every morning. The Marshal forums and Support is also very good they know their stuff.

http://www.4sure.it do something similar but use borderware boxes. Basically borderware are the only military certified email firewall in the world. They also do a 48 hour recovery service if your mail server goes down ect.
But i'd only go down that path if I was interested in intercepting viral emails before they hit my network.

May be worth a look if you want to handle spam offsite, be warned though you will have to point your MX records over to which ever provider you use who will then relay the mail to your IP. It will take 24-48 hours to setup with todays painfully slow DNS propagation.

monkey tennis

If it's a smaller company, then chances are you might be better off using a hosted filtering solution (as previously mentioned, your hosting company might do this) such as messagelabs or mxsweep. Next step up is something like Webmarshal, running on a windows box (Webmarshal is pretty easy to use, I think you can even run it on your Exchange box if needs be). Then you have your spam appliance, like borderware or Copperfasten (haven't used borderware personally, but I've used Copperfasten, and it does the job well) which are a bit more expensive, but could work out more economical for a bigger company.

tech

HI Guys Thanks for all the replys! I just dont know where to turn now. I've heard of messagelabs all rite

irishpartyboy

Mailmarshal is the best one I've used, tested quite a few. They're now doing appliances, as opposed to application on windows. The pricing model is per user.

The best out there IMO.

Philbert

I would recommend GFI MailEssentials to all my clients.

Its effective, admin friendly and affordable. Its was also voted first in the msexchange.org readers choice awards (link).

Im surprise it hasnt been mentioned already.

HTH.

NullZer0

SpamAssassin = Unbelievable!

Roen

Currently testing IronPort, but however good it is, the lack of ipv6 support will mean it won't be staying in the rack too much longer.

ressem

Is the concern primarily with spam mail arriving in the inbox of users?
Have you enabled the built-in Exchange 2003 service pack 2 internet mail filter? While it's not as good as GFI, it does cut out a lot of spam going to the end user.
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Intelligent-Message-Filter-version-2-IMF-v2.html

As a suggestion, a gateway blocking value of 6 and a junk folder setting of 4 works fairly well with few false positives (I assume you're not a pharmacy).

It is problematic if you add in custom blacklist rules as the rule list has to be recopied into the newly created update folder.

thesysman

Have you looked at SpamTitan, we use it, excellent product and great price too:)

mick.fr

For having been in this biz for a little while, I can asses a few of the solutions pointed out here are good, and a lot are bad.
Myself I would recommend you to go with Microsoft EHS (Exchange Hosted Services). It is cheap and very effective.

Not only it scans your emails against worms, viruses, spams, Microsoft also provides you with SLA.
They are the following:
100% known viruses
95% spam effectiveness.
99.9999% system availability.

It also keeps your incoming emails for 5 days online. In essence it means if your internal server goes down, you are still in business and able to browse your emails online and answer them.

This type of managed service really makes your life a lot easier rather than dealing with a software or appliance where you have to change the settings every now and then because there are new types of SPAM. Plus if one day you get another 10000 spam just like that (Seen it pretty often), you server performances are seriously affected because of this new load. With an hosted solution such as EHS, you do not have to worry about this kind of extra traffic.

Trinity College is using it for example. In 48 days when they tested the product, they got 20 million emails, but Microsoft has blocked 18 million, only 2 millions were legit. They also saved 50% on internet bandwidth.
They were extremely pleased with the solution.

Regarding MessageLabs, they are not as effective than EHS, I do not sell this anymore.

If you want I can send you a quote for EHS.

Philbert

I just want to clarify a few points for the OP because I found the last post a bit misleading.

mick.fr wrote: »

Myself I would recommend you to go with Microsoft EHS (Exchange Hosted Services). It is cheap and very effective.

Hosted exchange is not an anti spam product/solution in itself. You should be telling the OP which anti spam product you are using.

mick.fr wrote: »

Microsoft also provides you with SLA.

Microsoft does not provide you with an SLA. You (the hosted exchange service provider) do.

mick.fr wrote: »

Regarding MessageLabs, they are not as effective than EHS, I do not sell this anymore.

Again "EHS" is not an anti spam solution. Please tell us what server side anti spam product you are using and why.

mick.fr

Philbert wrote: »

I just want to clarify a few points for the OP because I found the last post a bit misleading.Hosted exchange is not an anti spam product/solution in itself. You should be telling the OP which anti spam product you are using.Microsoft does not provide you with an SLA. You (the hosted exchange service provider) do.
Again "EHS" is not an anti spam solution. Please tell us what server side anti spam product you are using and why.

Thanks for your comments but I am sorry you are totaly wrong here.
EHS is an Anti Spam/Anti Virus solution that works at the cloud level.
Microsoft gets your incoming email traffic, cleans it up and send it back to your internal email server (Does not need to be Exchange).

I believe that you thought EHS is some sort of Mailbox hosting, but not at all, the name is a bit misleading I agree, but for sure it is 100% an Anti Spam/Anti AV solution.
And yes Microsoft provides you with SLA regarding this service.

I know what I am selling :-)

Check the MS website for details
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/services/services.mspx

Philbert

Mick, I stand very much corrected

I had confused this service (which I have never heard of before) with hosted exchange.

Sorry

Zascar

I used to work for a company called www.maildistiller.com - check out the website and give them a call, brilliant solution. Any questions let me know

mick.fr

Philbert wrote: »

Mick, I stand very much corrected

I had confused this service (which I have never heard of before) with hosted exchange.

Sorry

No worries buddy

irishpartyboy

We installed recently enough, best I've ever used by a mile. The main reason was to fight DDOS attacks. Check out the Senderbase features..

www.ironport.com

matt-dublin

yeah ironport is good i've used it before, computer associates SCM isnt half bad either