Symantec strengthens mail security gateway

Symantec is updating its Mail Security for SMTP product, offering new features for cleaning up after mass-mailing worms and identifying trusted mail domains, as well as improved capabilities for detecting spam.

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Mail Security for SMTP 4.0 combines antivirus, e-mail content filtering and spam prevention. It scans e-mail at the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) gateway before it reaches an organisation's mail server or user inboxes. 

A new feature in Version 4.0 automatically collects and monitors so-called "trusted" internet domains from which e-mail messages should be accepted without having to pass through the product's heuristic spam filters and "blacklists" of banned domains. The feature will reduce false positives, in which legitimate e-mail correspondence is flagged as spam.

A Mass Mailer Cleanup feature helps companies eliminate the flood of e-mail traffic generated by mass-mailing worms such as Netsky and Mydoom. Many gateway antivirus products strip out virus-tinged e-mail file attachments or quarantine the e-mail message. However, Mail Security for SMTP 4.0 deletes the entire message and its attachment, reducing the amount of virus-generated e-mail that ends up on mail systems.

Other new features include the ability to customise spam filtering rules that look for specific text or keywords, as well as undesirable or offensive language and message content. Customers will also now be able to insert custom text, including legal disclaimers, to outgoing mail messages.

Pricing starts at $15 per user for licences of 10 to 25 users. For a 2,000-user licence, the cost is around $10 per user.

Paul Roberts writes for IDG News Service