Re: Anti-Virus Anti-Spam

["B Hamren" <bhamren@xxxxxxxxx>]

Steve,

This is a bit hard to answer since I don't know your size, setup, etc. My
particular answer is also not "Midrange" related since we do not use our
iSeries for email, but in another way it is related since we are a pretty
typical midrange shop.

We have about 30 users who have email and we use 2 servers. One is our
Exchange server and the other is a server used as a gateway to it running 2
GFI products, MailSecurity (anti-virus) and MailEssentials (anti-spam). We
have never had a virus ever get through and the anti-spam is better than
most. Their forum and technical support is great also.

All incoming mail goes through MailSecurity first. If it passes there it
goes on through MailEssentials. If it goes through there it goes to the
Exchange server and the user's mailbox.

MailSecurity will delete email with known viruses or exploits and quarantine
suspicious email based on configurable parameters. This way if there is a
new virus or exploit out there that the virus engines have not caught up to
yet, at least the mail will be quarantined.

MailEssentials is also highly configurable with about 10 filters which you
can order how you like. Ours is tweaked after a few years of practice. The
important thing for us is not to delete false positives. I delete known spam
and quarantine questionable ones caught by the Bayesian filter which I have
set last. I have to look through about 50 emails per day in the quarantine
(I don't actually look through the email but the from, to, and subject).
Most of these I delete but a few I have to pass on to users. I figure this
is better than deleting valid email.

Our stats on anti-spam over the past few months are as follows:
    On working week days, we average about 2000 emails per day, of which 72%
is spam.
    On weekends, we average about 1500 emails per day, of which 95% is spam.

Hope that helps,

Blair Hamren





"Steve Dodkins" wrote:
> What Anti-Virus Anti-Spam products do you use and would you recommend
> it?