XWALL-More ways to filter Spam

SLS FILTER Real Time Spam Lookup Services: XWall attacks spam with mutiple Sspam services IP based and domain based..3 mail filters and conditional rules. The SLS filter makes use out of the lookup services. These lookup servers keep lists of open SMTP relays. An open relay allows a spammer to send out millions of e-mails every day. So if these servers are know, a lot of spam can be stopped. XWall tests every connectiong SMTP server and the incomming messages header in real time with these lookup services. XWall out of the box has 3 SLS services preset. You may add additional IP or Domain based sls services.

GREYLISTING spot bt itself an estimated 80% of your spam. The filter rejects every message from unknows sources at first contact and allows passage at the second try. The filte is based on the fact, mail servers resend messages -spammers don't.

SURBL The SURBL filter is used to hit the spammers where it hurts. The SURBL detects links to advertisers known to support spammers and blocks the message

SPF Sender Permisson Filter. This filter looks for an SPF record in the sending servers DNS record. The SPF record shows who is allowed to send mail through that mail server. Another effective way for counter the spam flood.

VERIFY the verify block can be set to keep out messages to none existing users, senders
that have a fake MX, the PTR does not resolve of the From is fake.

The Bayes filter is another automated feature of XWall. It reads all messages and rates it according to the good and bad words in it's database. If a message reaches a rating you consider spam it will block it. The Bayes filter builds it's word database from the spam the filter blocks. It can also be trained by sending messages to it directly.

The Heuristic Filter a.k.a. Spam Assassin. This filter calculates the possibility that the message is spam by considering a number of factors like words in the body, subject, headers and more. Unlike the Bayes filter it does not need to learn and can be implemented right out of the box. For best protection we recommend to use both the Heuristic and the Bayes learning filter.

Blocking Filter: XWall has a sophisticated spam and junk mail blocking array.You can block mail with text and string traps, scan the subject line, disallow mail from some IP addresses, hosts or domains. Block mail to former employees and many more options. Remember the SOBIG virus? XWall can block messages with attachments. All XWall blocks and filters have individual exclude options, so you can prevent false positives. XWall also features an automatic whitelist; it builds an exclude list of email addresses you send mail to. Several block lists are builtin and only need to be modified to your needs.

CENTRAL CHECKSUM SERVICE The new CC Service in XWall is just the tool you have been waiting for. We've seen many viruses literally outrun the virus scanner. At best, one of the Norton's & Co. would claim to be the fastest to stop the virus, but that was after the virus did billions in damage. The XWall Central Checksum Service is very different and much faster.

I don't ask you to trow out exchange with the bath water. But there is nothing keeping you from optimize your email system.

Lets start with looking at the situation from a purely administrative aspect. Do you backup your Exchange? I assume your answer is yes. How many feet of tape contain nothing but spam which you backup every day eating hours of valuable equipment life?

Are you considering an upgrade to Exchange 2007 so you can handle the spam flood? If that's the way you want to handle spam make sure you budget for exchange 2010 and so on. Your MS rep will be happy to sell it to you. But it's still you who carries the spam in your exchange.

You say have to carry the spam in exchange so the user can check and make sure no important message gets lost. Take a minute to thing about this one. You use the spam filter because your users get flooded by spam and they can't find the good mail in the sea of garbage. Fine! So now you separated the spam from the good mail and this is the result.:

The user looks only at the "good" mail and forgets the mail in the junk folder. That's a recipe of loosing important mail

The user actually looks through the junk mail folder. That folder contains a much higher percentage of spam compared to the inbox before the spam filter. So if you were worried about loosing mail before you better be much more worried now.

You implemented the spam filter because spam eats productive work time. That's not only time searching through the junk mail folder but reading actual spam. It's right there, just click and the employee reads spam all day.

What have you gained by using the Exchange spam filter?

Less spam in the mail store? NO
Less backup volume? NO
Less lost email? NO
Less wasted time reading spam? NO
Better control over spam? NO
Less work for you? NO

Of course criticizing a product is easy. But we don't stop here. Our solution offers a completely different approach and a much preferred result.

We catch the spam before even gets to your exchange

Your exchange storage requirement will shrink by 80% typical.

We store the spam messages outside of exchange and only for a number of days, and then automatically delete them.

Any stored spam message is retrievable but you know about and can stop user abuse.

You receive a daily admin report by email. The report gives you an overview on your mail and spam situation.

Our utility emails a daily spam reports to all or selected users.

The spam report lists the blocked message by degree of spam content. So the user can concentrate on the possible filter errors much better.

Our solution offer more and better defined filters

Our firewall protects exchange from hackers and gives you complete relay control.

100% server based. There is nothing to be installed on the user system."We don't use any exchange plug-ins

And last but not least it works with all exchange servers and many SMTP servers.