GFI MailEssentials Anti-Spam Tool Tampa FL

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Originally published at Internet.com

At the heart of GFI MailEssentials is Bayesian filtering technology, which seeks to identify spam messages by applying mathematical analysis both to known spam message signatures and information (which is provided by GFI Software and automatically kept up to date by GFI MailEssentials) as well as the organization's own E-mail traffic patterns. Outbound E-mail from the company, for example, is automatically classified as valid E-mail and analyzed as such within the Bayesian algorithms; thus the filter "learns" over time which E-mails are or are not spam for the company. Additionally, administrators can assist the filtering technology by dragging and dropping known spam and valid E-mails into designated public folders; these messages will then be automatically incorporated into the E-mail identification process.

In addition to this content analysis-based filtering, GFI MailEssentials can also filter messages based on whitelist/blacklist settings, E-mail header information, and SURBL comparisons.

Both custom and 3rd party blacklists (ORDB, SpamHaus, Spamcop, RBL) are supported; and whitelists are built automatically via the collection of recipient addresses of outbound E-mails sent by the organization. Whitelists can also be tuned directly via domain names, E-mail addresses and keywords; and end users can add addresses to white/blacklists by dragging and dropping messages to designated public folders.

Header information analysis detects invalid messages based on the existence of forged headers, messages sent from invalid domains, etc. Field keyword-based checking can also be configured by the administrator.

E-mail content can be checked against SURBL servers (Spam URI Realtime Blocklists). SURBL servers detect spam based on URIs that exist in the body of the message.

Messages identified as spam can be deleted, moved to a public folder, forwarded, or sent directly to a user-designated inbox folder (such as "junk") for further review by the intended recipient.

Other features in GFI MailEssentials include a list server (newsletters and discussion lists) with subscribe/unsubscribe controls (the list server utilizes Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server on the back end); automatic archiving of inbound and outbound E-mails to Microsoft SQL Server; reporting; customizable header/footer text for all messages sent through the server (both text and HTML supported); and LDAP support in directory harvesting checks.

New to the latest release of the product are anti-phishing capabilities via the vendor's Phishing URI Realtime Blocklist (PURBL). The engine detects phishing E-mails by comparing the URIs in the E-mail to a database of known phishing URIs and by looking for typical phishing keywords in the URIs. If identified as a phishing threat, the E-mail is then treated as spam.

GFI MailEssentials requires Exchange Server 2000/2003/4/5/5.5, Lotus Notes 4.5+, or an SMTP/POP3 Mail Server with the IIS5 SMTP service installed and running as an SMTP relay to the mail server. The list server feature requires Microsoft Message Queueing Services.

Pricing starts at $450 for 25 mailboxes; volume discounts, and upgrade pricing. Bundled packages are also available with the vendor's GFI MailSecurity offering (anti-virus and content checking) starting at $775 for 25 mailboxes.

The new anti-phishing module will be offered for free with all purchases of GFI MailEssentials until March 31, 2006 (the free offer includes free updates of the module for up to 1 year).

Finally, a full evaluation version is available that automatically times out after 10 days unless a license key is purchased.Author: EITPlanet Staff

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