Email virus protection

Thu Aug 21 00:49:07 UTC 2003

To answer the original question asked...

At 10:50 -0700 8/20/03, Christopher J. Wolff wrote:
>What is the most common method for providing virus protection for your
>hosted email customers?  Thank you in advance.

We use a layered approach, with Postini being the front line ...they 
do an *excellent* job, and we - and our clients - love them.
<http://www.postini.com>
We forced all the (mail) domains we host to use Postini about a year 
ago when our mail servers came under some serious directory harvest 
attacks. We allow clients to opt-out of the spam filtering if they 
want, but still run the mail through Postini's system anyway to stop 
directory harvest and virus attacks. Postini can be set to filter, 
but not quarantine, which looks to our opt-out clients like no 
filtering but still saves our mailservers from most assaults.

Second layer is some nice configuration options on our 
customer-facing mail servers, which run CommunigatePro from Stalker.
<http://www.stalker.com>
CGP is as full featured as Exchange, but without the BS. Plus it has 
the added benefit of actually working as advertised, and can be run 
on virtually *any* platform. The suits like the buzzword-compliance 
and the fact that it is commercially supported (excellent support too 
I'll add.) The geeks like it because it *works*... and on any 
platform they choose.

The last layer is of course the hardest to control, as it is out of 
our hands and in the client's, but we strongly suggest that they use 
a mail client that doesn't auto-execute code.

Myself, I use Eudora on my PowerBook running OS X. I know that 
doesn't make me somehow immune to everything... just the vast 
majority. My nanog list mail account got joejobbed by the 
"Netscalibur" user, both as sender and receiver (supposedly from 
Valdis Kletnieks, and somebody at NetSol.) and I've never seen what 
an Outlook mail client looks like. =)

I have to agree with Mr. Donelan who said here:
"(Microsoft) Outlook, the exploding Pinto on the information superhighway."

Regards,
-- 

Chuck Goolsbee                          V.P. Technical Operations
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