Providing security against email related threats has become a burden for most IT professionals in 2006. According to a recent study by Postini, spam and email viruses now make up to 80% of all emails sent out as compared to 50% in 2000. As a result, IT professionals now face a tougher challenge in providing network security for this amount of spam. IT professionals also have the disadvantage of defending against new forms of email threats such as spam zombies, directory harvest attacks, mass mailing trojans, as well as the latest email virus. In this article, I have listed the seven most effective spam fighting tips for organizations with in-house mail servers. These seven tips are proven techniques I have used for my customers, partners and associates who wish to tighten their perimeter (network) security. Firewall:
A firewall is your first line of defense against hackers, crackers, and spammers. Without a firewall, your network is a disaster waiting to happen and could give any novice hacker free reign over your network. If your organization has multiple Internet users, this tool is essential for securing your network. Block Port 25:
On your firewall, allow outbound traffic on TCP port 25 for all mail servers. Block traffic on outbound TCP port 25 for all other computers and servers. On the Internet, TCP port 25 is used for email traffic through SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol). Blocking this port is a good security practice and prevents mass mailing worms and spam zombies from sending mail from your users’ computers. Managed Email Filtering:
Consider using a managed filtering solution such as Postini, Brightmail, or SpamSoap. Managed Email Filtering services quarantine spam, viruses, and email threats before reaching the email servers on your network. In comparison to desktop filters and server appliances, managed filtering services provide superior perimeter (network) protection by preventing delivery of spam and viruses to your network and servers. Check Relay Setting:
A mail server’s relay setting controls which computers and servers are able to send SMTP email on your organization’s behalf. Check your settings and limit the IP address range to email users on your local network. Some mail servers have settings to limit email relay through authentication. If authentication-based relay is available, setup and configure it too. NOTE: If the relay is not set properly, spammers will be able to send email from your mail server. This exploit is commonly known as an “Open Relay” or a “Spam Relay.” Use the Open Relay test at http://www.abuse.net/relay.htm to check if spammers can relay mail from your server. Black Lists:
Setup your mail server(s) with a black list. A black list (black hole list) is a database or listing of known spam sources. Most modern email servers can be configured to query inbound email against online blacklists. Messages originating from these sources can then be blocked. I recommend configuring your email server with SpamHaus blacklist. Spamhaus.org is an excellent free service to use. Some other good blacklists are DBSL and SpamCop. Reverse DNS:
Reverse DNS (rDNS) associates an IP Address with a Domain Name. Most mail servers, as an anti-spam feature, often use a reverse DNS lookup to compare an email address domain name with its IP address. If the IP address found from the rDNS lookup does not match the domain name, it is probably spam. If you haven’t done so, setup and configure reverse DNS records on your DNS server. Anti-Virus Scan:
There are many tools that provide adequate anti-virus protection for desktops at the workplace. Most anti-virus software is good at detecting viral threats that proliferate email spam such as mass mailing worms, trojans, and directory harvesters. Large organizations might want to use enterprise anti-spam software with management and monitoring tools that will allow tracking of network virus outbreaks. Recommended Links:
- http://www.spam-x.com
- http://www.postini.com
- http://www.spamhaus.org
- http://www.dbsl.org
- http://www.spamcop.net
- http://www.abuse.net/relay.htm
- http://www.dnsreport.com
- http://www.dnsstuff.com
- http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/02/17/spam.zombies.ap Email viruses and related threats delivered through spam have cost businesses billions of dollars in expenses and lost productivity. Each spam email sent or received from your domain costs your organization money and bandwidth. By implementing these seven tips, your organization can reduce spam and recover costs. This article: © Copyright 2006 Todd Green and free for republishing. Todd Green is a partner of a Memphis-based IT consulting firm. He has over fourteen years’ experience in the field of Information Technology and has managed security on many corporate networks over the years. He is the owner of SPAM-X, a <a href="http://www.spam-x.com” rel=”nofollow”>Postini reseller (http://www.spam-x.com) and a partner for <a href="http://www.spam-x.com” rel=”nofollow”>Postini’s preemptive spam and virus filtering service.Free Wordpress Plugins

Computers are very detailed machines that function by set rules, codes and languages. Everything follows a pattern and schedule in order to operate efficiently. Computer viruses can affect the cosmetics of a computer such as the screen and display appearances or the simple functions such as the way the keyboard operates or the functionality of the drives. Some of these symptoms may seem to be only a minor inconvenience, but when you see these signs you should wonder what may have caused the change and what else may be going on that you can’t see. Other symptoms can include loss of files, decrease in memory space, slow operation and damaged programs.
The writer of the virus determines how they will infect the system as well as what they want the virus to do. In most cases, a virus will perform damage to the host system, and may do this while performing another function such as retrieving information, and then spread to the remainder of the network.
A computer virus is similar to a medical virus in that it often occurs even when precautions were taken to prevent it. Particularly malicious viruses steal information and data, which may be confidential. This may be customer or client information of a personal nature whether medical, financial or some other form. It may be company information specific to employee’s records, user names and passwords or other functions of the business. Information may simultaneously be erased. It can pick up information from any other computer in the network. It can locate other users and obtain their information.
There are many programs available and they are a must-have for an individual’s personal computer and certainly for that of a business. Strong measures must be taken to prevent viruses within a company, as one infected computer is opening the door to the entire network, putting clients, customers and even employees at risk. Businesses should understand that the condition of their system is susceptible to change with every employee that signs into the network. Training should be instituted to prevent damage by teaching employees how to determine what is safe use of the system, how to update their protection programs and how to know if something is questionable and when to bring it to the attention of the IT department. It is always helpful to set up the virus protection programs to run automatically and the individual systems or the network as a whole can be set to automatically update the programs that are install along with fixes and patches as needed. In addition to anti-virus programs a filter may also help to block viruses.
While the anti-virus is placed inside the firewall, a filter is placed on the outside and closer to the server. Users may be limited as far as what can be received and may not be able to open attachments. This will undoubtedly create an inconvenience, though it is in the best interest of the company and will save money by eliminating loss of business if a shutdown is needed to correct a problem. A virus usually spreads very quickly and for a large company this can be costly. Prevention is always the least costly way to reduce the risk of virus. WP Robot Wordpress Autoposter

Hickory, NC – April 24th, 2009 – The Chambers County Board of Education prides itself on operating some of Alabama’s most high-tech, state-of-the-art information technology systems. The Board oversees 11 schools in the Valley and LaFayette areas, including six elementary schools, two middle schools, two secondary schools, and a cutting-edge business/industry certified career technical center. Nine of the county’s 10 schools are certified by the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges (SACS), a body founded in 1895 to improve education throughout the American South through accreditation, and the 10th is close to completing the accreditation process.   William Groover, the district’s technology director, leads the school system’s efforts in providing a technology environment that will adequately prepare students for tomorrow’s job market. At the classroom level, this manifests itself as a better-than-average ratio of students to computers. In addition, Groover manages the 1,400 workstations and 68 servers that serve the district’s 450 faculty and staff members and 4,200 students.   AVG: Still the Leader of the Pack This past fall, the district was nearing the end of its license agreement for AVG Anti-Virus Network Edition.  While Groover and his staff were satisfied with AVG’s protection and ease of use, they decided it would be prudent to re-test it against the latest iterations from the other major anti-virus suppliers.      “To keep our network at the cutting edge, we needed to be sure AVG was keeping its edge as well,” said Groover. “So, we put it through its paces alongside Computer Associates, McAfee, Trend Micro, and Symantec.”   Groover was delighted to learn after the tests were complete that AVG was still head-and-shoulders above the rest of the pack.   “AVG wasn’t the cheapest solution, nor was it the most expensive, but the combination of the overall performance, strength, value for money, and ease of use proved that it was still the best anti-virus product for our school system,” he concluded.   One area in particular about the other products that concerned Groover about was the tendency towards incomprehensible and/or misplaced error messages.             “AVG software tells you when there is something wrong, and you can trust that when it raises a flag, there is something that needs to be looked at,” he noted. “AVG doesn’t give you error messages that are unwarranted, unlike other anti-virus products.”   Groover is also sold on the simplicity of AVG’s network management capabilities.   “AVG’s ease of management is a huge plus for us. It is such a benefit to be able to selectively target which workstations AVG will be pushed out to and then do so from one centralized location,” he added.   Walling Data Leads the Pack, Too After deciding to renew their subscription to AVG Anti-Virus Network Edition, Groover contacted the distributor from whom they’d purchased their current licenses.   “Last time we renewed our subscription, we went with an overseas vendor,” said Groover. “But this time I was less than impressed. I placed several calls to their offices and never got a response. There was clearly little point in continuing to work with them, so I decided to look for another experienced AVG distributor.”   After a quick swing around the AVG website, Groover learned that Walling Data was the leading distributor of AVG solutions to the Education marketplace, so he gave them a call.   “We were delighted to find that Walling could not only give us a great discount on our educational license but would give us unlimited technical support at no extra cost,” recalled Groover. “A lot of companies offer free support for a certain time period, but with Walling there was no question about it – you call them anytime you need help and they are there for you.” Walling Data is the longest-standing and highest-volume distributor of AVG Technologies solutions in North America. The company is also the only distributor to offer all its customers – resellers and end-users – free, unlimited, U.S.-based pre- and post-sales support. Groover and his team is currently deploying the AVG upgrade across their networks “We had some initial questions about setting up the software and rolling it out, but after talking to the Walling support team, everything is moving along just fine,” said Groover. “We like the new version – and our new supplier – a whole lot better.” For more information on purchasing AVG Anti-Virus Network Edition products from Walling Data, or to learn more, visit http://www.avgantivirus.com # # #         About Walling DataFounded in 1994, N.C.-based Walling Data is a value-added distributor of technology products for resellers, small businesses, and education and government institutions.  Walling Data was the nation’s first distributor of AVG security products and today is the highest-volume distributor for the product in North America, with more than 50,000 satisfied customers.  Walling is also the only value-added distributor for Cymphonix Network Composer, an award-winning device that helps companies control and monitor users compliance with internet usage policies. Additionally, the company has recently become a distributor of CyberPatrol’s parental control and business-grade web filtering solutions. Walling Data provides free, unlimited, U.S.-based phone and “we-do-it-for-you” remote support for all of its customers. For more information, visit www.wallingdata.com and www.avgantivirus.com  About AVG Technologieswww.avg.comAVG is a global security solutions leader protecting more than 80 million consumers and small business computer users in 167 countries from the ever-growing incidence of web threats, viruses, spam, cyber-scams and hackers on the Internet. Headquartered in Amsterdam, AVG has nearly two decades of experience in combating cyber crime and one of the most advanced laboratories for detecting, pre-empting and combating Web-borne threats from around the world. Its free online, downloadable software model allows entry-level users to gain basic anti-virus protection and then to easily and inexpensively upgrade to greater levels of safety and defense in both single and multi-user environments. Nearly 6,000 resellers, partners and distributors team with AVG globally including Amazon.com, CNET, Cisco, Ingram Micro, Play.com, Wal-Mart, and Yahoo!. Accurate professional psychic reading – Get answers today!