BIOS: Technology Means Business

FutureSoft’s DynaComm i:series offers a number of software content security solutions for protecting your company’s e-mail traffic and Internet access. DynaComm i:mail provides you with the tools to monitor and filter your company’s incoming and outgoing e-mail in order to help protect you from virus attack, wasted bandwidth and proprietary information loss.

Productivity loss as a result of dealing with spam, virus protection and system misuse is costing businesses thousands of pounds per annum. Plus, offensive material entering and leaving your organisation can result in litigation, which could cost your company thousands (or millions) of pounds. There’s also the very real threat of sensitive material and intellectual property leaving your network, which could cause further damage to your company’s reputation. All of these areas present significant corporate vulnerabilities and e-mail filtering is just one area to help minimise these threats.

DynaComm i:mail 3.1 is an e-mail filter application which uses a combination of natural language processing and file signature technology to categorise e-mail as it enters or leaves your network. It does by this by using key phrase and threshold weighting systems to analyse e-mails, compressed and embedded file attachments to ensure proprietary information is protected. User management rules help you to ensure that only the right kind of e-mail flows in or out of your company.

Version 3.1 includes a more advanced rules engine, which allows more granular rule specifications, and rules are now easier to create and configure. Anti-spam blocking capabilities has also been improved, along with third-party blacklist support (Spamcop, Spamhaus and MAPS) and spam recognition facilities based on keyword and key phrase content. Other improvements include enhancements to the reporting engine to allow instant scheduling of any of the pre-defined and custom reports, making it easier to report on e-mail traffic usage across your company.

The software’s administrative functions are accessed via a single, intuitive user interface. Once the software has been configured, all functions are automated and don’t need manual operation, including report generation, managing activity logs and notification of key events.

DynaComm i:mail uses a layered approach to reducing spam. Both connection level and content-based filters are used. The software works by testing for spam based on the source of the e-mail, the manner in which it was sent and the content of the e-mail itself. The software first uses a third-party blacklist service to minimise e-mail sent from known sources of spam. It then uses an array of heuristic techniques to recognise spam based on the manner in which it was sent. For example, discrepancies between the ‘from’ address and the actual sender is likely to indicate that the e-mail was sent by a spammer. The third layer of filters is based on the content itself. DynaComm i:mail comes with a selection of natural language categories based on key phrases, enabling administrators to classify the content of an e-mail message. For example, Adult and Spam categories can be used together to prevent spam from being delivered to users’ e-mail boxes. These categories are updated on a weekly basis by FutureSoft.

DynaComm i:mail’s management reports give you complete visibility to e-mail traffic. Information from SMTP servers is combined with the software’s Central Log Database and used by the Reporting module to produce either summary or detailed reports on the e-mail activity of individual users or entire groups. The software includes 48 pre-defined reports, which can be used as templates to create your own customised reports. Reports can be produced on-demand and viewed and printed in the Management Console or scheduled to run during off-peak hours and then e-mailed to designated recipients.

The main reports generated by DynaComm i:mail include Blacklisted Reports (Blacklisted Traffic by Day, Blacklisted Traffic by Domain, Blacklisted Traffic by Hour, Blacklisted Traffic Details), Traffic Reports (Category, Domain, Hour, Day), Detail Reports (User, Blocked Traffic, Blocked Traffic by User), Group Reports (Category, Domains, Traffic by Hour, Traffic by Category) and Top 10 Reports (Top 10 Blacklisted Domains, Top 10 Blocked Domains, Top 10 Blocked Groups, Top 10 Blocked Internal Users, Top 10 Blocked External Users, Top 10 Domains, Top 10 External Users, Top 10 Internal Users, Top 10 Groups). You can also produce a standard summary report (six different charts displaying an overview of e-mail activity) or reports based on Productivity Impact, Ratio of Blacklisted to Non-Blacklisted Traffic, Summary of Blocked Traffic by Category and Summary of Traffic by Category.

Larger companies need to take an active approach to e-mail and Web filtering to cope with the influx of spam, protect themselves against viruses, the threat of sensitive company information leaving the building via e-mail and the reduction in employee productivity. DynaComm i:mail offers just e-mail filtering, so you’ll have to further invest in a Web filtering (URL blocking) solution from FutureSoft, or look at alternative solutions from competitors such as Clearswift, for total protection.

While DynaComm i:mail provides good protection at the SMTP server level, it doesn’t protect from employees using personal Web-based e-mail accounts, such as Yahoo! or Hotmail. This could leave a gaping back door open in your company’s e-mail enforcement policy. It will however, provide a reduction in unsolicited commercial e-mail, or spam, that your mail server will receive. However, the effectiveness of an application like DynaComm i:mail relies heavily on a company establishing a written policy that outlines acceptable and unacceptable use of the Internet and e-mail, educates employees on the policy, and then enforcing it.

Links:
DynaComm i:mail 3.1 Trial
DynaComm i:mail 3.1 Data sheet
DynaComm i:mail 3.1 FAQs
Securing the Mail Server White paper
The Evolution of Enterprise Content Security White paper
Countering Threats to Content Security White paper
Preventing & Detecting Insider Attacks White paper