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Product Features:
Multi-engine protection against the latest e-mail
threats
Updated: August 14, 2007
Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server
includes multiple scan engines from industry-leading
security firms integrated into a single solution to help
businesses protect their Exchange messaging environments
from viruses, worms, and spam. It ships with and
integrates multiple industry-leading antivirus engines
to provide comprehensive, layered protection against the
latest threats. Through deep integration with Exchange
Server, scanning innovations and performance controls,
Forefront Security for Exchange Server helps protect
messaging environments while maintaining uptime and
optimizing server performance. Forefront Security for
Exchange Server also enables administrators to easily
manage server configuration and operation, and automated
scan engine signature updates and reporting, at the
server and enterprise level.
Forefront Security for Exchange Server SP1 Beta 2 is
now available, and provides support for Exchange Server
2007 SP1 and Windows Server 2008, as well as content
filtering and manageability enhancements. These
enhancements include:
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Seamless support for
organizations running IPv6 |
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Improved content filtering
with installable keyword lists that can be used
to eliminate e-mail containing profanity in
eleven supported languages |
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Improved integration with
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager
through new health monitoring logs and alerts
that allow administrators to proactively monitor
the state of their Exchange 2007 protection |
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Increased flexibility for
scanning or blocking high compression zip files
and RAR archives |
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Multiple anti-virus
engines for advanced protection |
Forefront Security for
Exchange Server includes industry-leading
anti-virus engines from global security firms
such as Kaspersky Labs, CA and Sophos.
Businesses can run up to five scan engines at
once, and in different combinations across the
server system. This provides rapid response to
new threats regardless of where the threat
originates. Forefront Security for Exchange
Server automatically downloads the latest
signatures and selects the optimal combination
of engines to use, ensuring a high level of
protection, and reducing the window of exposure
to any given threat. Diversity of anti-virus
engines across messaging servers and client
devices protects against a single point of
failure in the IT environment. |
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Premium spam protection |
Forefront Security for Exchange Server customers
receive Premium Anti-spam Services. Built upon
the base level of anti-spam protection within
Exchange Server 2007, Premium Anti-spam Services
adds:
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Exchange Server
2007 IP reputation filter—an IP Block
list that is offered exclusively to
Exchange Server 2007 customers. Premium
Spam Protection also includes automated
updates for this filter. |
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Automated content
filtering updates for Microsoft
Smartscreen spam heuristics, phishing
Web sites, and other Intelligent Message
Filter (IMF) updates. |
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Targeted spam
signature data and automatic updates to
identify the latest spam campaigns. |
These capabilities help ensure organizations
have the most up-to-date protection against the
latest spam attacks. |
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Fail-safe protection |
Forefront Security for
Exchange Server incorporates a multiple engine
manager that ensures if one engine goes offline
to update or even fails, other engines continue
to protect your messaging environment without
delaying mail delivery. |
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Layered protection |
Forefront Security for
Exchange Server provides protection at multiple
checkpoints in the messaging infrastructure,
including Exchange Server 2007 Edge, Hub, and
Mailbox servers, helping to stop viruses, worms,
and spam before they impact the network or user
productivity. |
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Protection against new and
hidden threats |
Forefront Security for
Exchange Server includes heuristics technologies
that detect malicious code based on behavioral
characteristics. It also has configurable file
filtering rules that help customers eliminate
file types known for carrying viruses (for
example, .exe). |
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Multi-vendor response to
new threats |
The critical hours between
discovering a new threat in the wild and
delivering a signature to catch it leave a
business highly vulnerable to attack. Dependence
upon a single-engine solution only increases
this risk. One security vendor may be first to
deliver a signature for one threat, but last to
deliver the signature for the next one, giving
single-engine solutions fluctuating levels of
effectiveness. With the multiple-engine solution
of Forefront Security for Exchange Server,
multiple vendors are responding to a new virus
at once, increasing the odds for a quick
response and lowering a business’ overall risk
of exposure to each new threat, regardless of
its origin around the world. Automatic downloads
help ensure that the first valid solution to the
attack gets loaded to the engine set of
Forefront Security for Exchange Server. |
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Performance optimization
and control |
Forefront Security for
Exchange Server scans messages and attachments
using in-memory scanning, significantly
improving performance over more traditional
techniques such as spooling to disk. Its
multi-threaded scanning increases mail
throughput by enabling the software to analyze
multiple messages simultaneously. With
performance settings, IT administrators can
balance the wanted level of security against the
level of server performance required to meet the
changing needs of their environment. |
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Improved e-mail Store
scanning efficiency |
Forefront Security for
Exchange Server uses the antivirus transport
stamp in Exchange Server 2007 to ensure that, if
a message is scanned once at an Exchange Server
2007 Edge or Hub server, it does not need to be
scanned again later in the pipeline. The
program’s incremental background scanning
provides an efficient way to scan the Store for
messages that are the most likely to carry the
latest threats (such as e-mail that’s a few
hours or days old), without also repeatedly
scanning the entire Store. These features enable
the IT administrator to conserve valuable
messaging server resources. |
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Increased uptime |
Unlike single-engine
solutions, Forefront Security for Exchange
Server has the ability to continue scanning
e-mail with all available engines, even during
engine or signature updates. If an update is
available, each engine is taken offline
independently while the other engines continue
to scan e-mail messages. Forefront Security for
Exchange Server also ensures that if an engine
or signature update fails, it automatically
comes back online with the last known good
engine and signatures. These capabilities
prevent message queuing and delay on the
Exchange server, and help to ensure
uninterrupted mail flow. |
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Efficient threat removal |
Forefront Security for
Exchange Server prevents spam and worm traffic
from ever reaching mailboxes, reducing workload
on the mail server and preserving disk space for
business-critical information. Forefront
Security for Exchange Server’s WormPurge feature
automatically purges messages that match known
worm signatures to reduce unnecessary mail
traffic, free up storage, and improve mail
server performance. Removing these messages
avoids user confusion and reduces unwarranted
calls to the helpdesk. |
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Effective mail cluster
support |
Forefront Security for
Exchange Server supports Cluster configurations
including Exchange Server 2007 Continuous
Cluster Replication (CCR). This helps ensure
that both active and passive nodes have the most
up-to-date configuration information and
signatures, so messaging traffic can remain
secure even if individual mail servers fail. |
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Exchange Server 2007
integration |
Use of Exchange transport
agents and Virus Scanning API (VSAPI) helps
provide tight compatibility and stability with
Exchange Server 2007 servers. Forefront Security
for Exchange Server utilizes the transport
agents and virus scanning API technologies of
Exchange Server 2007, ensuring close
integration. |
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Forefront server security
administration |
The built-in management
console enables administrators to fully
configure Forefront Security for Exchange
Server, either locally or remotely. |
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Centralized Web-based
control |
Forefront Security for
Exchange Server works with the Microsoft
Forefront Server Security Server Management
Console, which provides central configuration,
deployment, and updating for all Forefront
server security products in enterprise
environments that have multiple Exchange
servers. This enables IT administrators to
easily manage servers remotely, generate
comprehensive reports, and receive outbreak
alerts from across the infrastructure. |
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One-stop automated updates |
Through its Rapid Update
Process, Microsoft monitors all scan-engine
vendor Web sites for updates and downloads, and
validates new engine versions and signatures as
they become available; then it posts them online
for Forefront Security for Exchange Server to
automatically download and install. No IT
involvement is needed to keep all of the engines
and signatures up-to-date. For environments that
have multiple Exchange servers, Forefront Server
Security Management Console automatically
distributes the signature and engine updates to
all Forefront Security for Exchange Server
deployments within the environment. |
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Migration protection |
Customers who purchase
Forefront Security for Exchange Server to help
protect Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will also
be licensed to use the Microsoft Antigen for
Exchange, Microsoft Antigen for SMTP Gateways,
and Antigen Spam Manager to help protect their
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Microsoft
Exchange 2000 Server environments. This helps
ensure that the entire messaging environment is
protected during migration to Exchange Server
2007. |
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Localization |
Forefront Security for
Exchange Server is now localized into 11
languages, making it easier for administrators
to manage their messaging server security in the
language of their region. Manage Exchange Server
security in the regional language of choice by
obtaining Forefront Security for Exchange Server
in one of these 11 languages: English, German,
French, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Korean,
Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional),
Portuguese (Brazil), and Russian. |
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Integrated monitoring |
A management pack for
Microsoft Operations Manager enables the IT
administrator to monitor the health of Forefront
Security for Exchange Server as part of
corporate operational management practices. |
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