I had a client who was just getting killed by spammers. Every morning their inbox was loaded with junk mail and they had as much as five thousand (5,000) emails in their spam filter box when they came in. I decided to help them out with the free version of Astaro Security Gateway. We threw the software version (v7) on an old AMD box they had lying around – 2GHz processor, 20GB IDE drive, 512 RAM, two NICS. What a difference spam filtering at the perimeter of the network makes! The first week was like “wow”. Astaro actually generates a daily report and for email filtering we had 36,930 processed. Get this, out of that number, 36,832 was categorized as “Spam emails blocked”. And the live log was right there for us to see. Emails the system was not sure about were placed in quarantine and you have the option of having an admin view, release or delete those emails, or have a report sent to the affected user. The report even had a “Top 10 Spam Sender” entry with the IP addresses and countries of origin (little flags) of the bad guys. There was also a “Top 5 Spam Countries” entry on the report.
Servers
SBS 2008 and IPv6
So I just pulled an all-nighter trying to remove an SBS 2003 server from an SBS 2008 domain after a relatively uneventful migration. In fact, the part that I dreaded most – migrating mailboxes – turned out to be the easiest. After cleaning out the AD and transferring everything Exchange to the SBS 2008 “destination” … Read more
Brace Up for SBS 2008
The Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008 offers a lot of good things for the small business owner: solid Windows Server 2008 Operating System, Exchange Server 2007, Remote Access, email for mobile devices, seamless integration with Forefront Security for Exchange Server protection technologies and more. However, because it is inherently different from the previous versions, there is going to be a somewhat steep learning curve.
DHS Releases Conficker/Downadup Computer Worm Detection Tool
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Monday the release of a DHS-developed detection tool that can be used by the federal government, commercial vendors, state and local governments, and critical infrastructure owners and operators to scan their networks for the Conficker/Downadup computer worm. According to the DHS The department’s United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team … Read more
Proactive steps for the small business owner
Every small business owner has experienced it – the dizzying speed at which technology is evolving, the myriad of solutions out there, the outrageous cost of so-called “solutions” proffered by self-confessed experts, and the tendency to “In-Source” I.T. responsibilities to a technology-savvy employee who quickly becomes frustrated, overworked and under-utilized. The outcome of this scenario is the overwhelming number of small business environments with ill-maintained computer networks that are out of date in terms of security patches, backups, updates and a coherent licensing structure.
Small Business Servers you never heard of!
Now be honest, what do you know about ClarkConnect, Astaro, Untangle. Chances are, you do not have any idea what they are. These are the Open Source equivalents of Microsoft’s Small Business Server. ClarkConnect is a piece of software built on the solid foundation of Red Hat’s code. The application manages to pack a lot … Read more