Mail and Web Security Blog

Using Symantec Web Gateway to protect user-owned tablets and smartphones from Internet threats

Duncan Mills | 16 May 2013 | 0 comments

The increased use in the workplace of user-owned devices such as smartphones and tablets, often referred to as bring your own device (BYOD), provides businesses with significant productivity and cost benefits. However, it also presents a number of complex challenges related to security.

Due to the rise of smart media devices like smartphones, tablets and ultrabooks, it is estimated that potentially, as many as 30-35%* of endpoints connected to a company’s network could be unmanaged. These are more at risk than managed endpoints which are typically subject to software patching and endpoint security policies.

Of course unmanaged endpoints are still protected by your perimeter security, such as secure web gateways. However, these have typically evolved from caching proxies and URL filters. What you need is an additional layer of security that provides the best possible levels of protection for unmanaged endpoints.

Symantec Web Gateway (SWG) will...

Upcoming Twitter Chat on Targeted Email Attacks

Ian McShane | 08 Jan 2013 | 1 comment

Join hashtag #MailSec and learn more about the dangers of targetted email attacks and how to prevent them.

Takedowns of large botnet rings in recent years have caused spam numbers to plummet. However, the drop in spam doesn’t make spammers any less dangerous. Spammers have now turned to targeted attacks to reach their victims. As targeted attacks and malware continue to expand and grow in number, and data breaches continue to rise, users and businesses of all sizes need to be aware of what to look out for, and how to protect proprietary information. No business is too big or too small to be a target.

Please join Symantec’s email security experts Ian McShane (@ianmcshane), Paul Murray (@paulsmurray), Matt Cooke (@mattcooke), Paul Wood (@paulowoody) and Eric Schwake (@lombar77) next Thursday, January 10 at 11 am ET, to discuss targeted attacks and what can be done to prevent them from harming you or your business....

Announcing the Symantec Email Submission Client Beta

Ian McShane | 27 Sep 2012 | 4 comments

One of the great things about working in the Messaging & Web Security BU is the amount of cool new technology and functionality we work on. Some times, this is behind the scenes on our backend systems and other times this is new functionality for existing products.

This time, however, I'm really excited to announce the beta program of a brand new application:

Symantec Email Submissions Client

This application allows you to automate the submission of missed spam (aka false negatives) to Symantec, directly from your end user mailboxes.

Symantec Email Submission Client takes advantage of the Exchange Web Services framework built into Microsoft Exchange Server to provide a submissions solution that:

Does NOT require any installation to you endpoint devices.
Does NOT require any updates to be managed/pushed to your endpoint devices.
...

Personalize Protection Against Unwanted Email with Symantec Messaging Gateway

akottas | 12 Apr 2011 | 1 comment

We’ve been holding off on the news, but as many of you have realized, Symantec Messaging Gateway 9.5 (formerly Symantec Brightmail Gateway) is now available – in fact, over 1,800 customers have already upgraded to the new release. We mentioned many of the new features as part of our earlier beta announcement – thank you to everyone who participated! We had 150 beta participants registered.

Many of our beta participants and early adopters of the new release have already shared great reviews about the new dispositions feature, a new method of personalizing your defenses against unwanted email by setting up policies against three new categories of email. This new feature allows Symantec to aggressively target email messages that some email users would like us to block, but that others consider legitimate. At Symantec, we have always valued accuracy (low false positives!) at least as much as effectiveness. By generating filters on these types of...

Symantec Brightmail Gateway - Beta for 9.5 release

akottas | 18 Nov 2010 | 2 comments

The Symantec Enterprise Security team is now accepting applications to participate in the Symantec Brightmail Gateway 9.5 Beta program. Symantec Brightmail Gateway is also part of the Symantec Protection Suites.

The beta process is a great way for participants to get an early look at exciting new features in our upcoming release, and also get direct access back to the product development team on product feedback.

The 9.5 release includes:

New Dispositions: New configurable verdicts for unwanted email categories allow customers to configure policies regarding marketing mail, newsletters, and email with suspicious URLs.
Enhanced Spam Scanning: Updates to the Brightmail Antispam Engine allow better scanning of text-based attachments for spam and malicious URLs.
Match Logging: Enhanced message audit logs capture matching policy, text, and message part for content filtering policies.

Welcome to the new Mail & Web Security Blog!

akottas | 27 Sep 2010 | 3 comments

Welcome to the new Mail & Web Security Blog! Brightmail isn't going away, but we wanted to expand our coverage to include news about our complete email and web security portfolio, including the Brightmail products (Brightmail Gateway, Brightmail Message Filter, and Brightmail Traffic Shaper), the Mail Security products (Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange and Mail Security for Domino), and Symantec Web Gateway.

In addition, Symantec's messaging and web security products are core components of the Symantec Protection Suites.

Stay tuned for more updates, including an expanded cast of authors as we grow our coverage across a broader slice of the Symantec portfolio.

VBSpam Results

akottas | 09 Sep 2010 | 1 comment

Virus Bulletin just published their September 2010 test results (http://www.virusbtn.com/vbspam/index), and Symantec Brightmail Gateway once against received a VBSpam designation - our 5th consecutive recognition.

In this month's test, Symantec Brightmail Gateway registered an effectiveness score of 99.64%, with 0 false positives! It is great to see external validation for the premium that Symantec places on balancing very high effectiveness (over 99%) with accuracy (low false positives) in fighting spam.

You may be familiar with the Virus Bulletin name - Virus Bulletin is an independent third party that has been running comparative tests on antivirus technologies for over a decade. Symantec's antivirus engines have achieved over 40 VB100 awards during this time.

Our team is thrilled with the latest results on the VBSpam testing. Symantec Brightmail Gateway is a core...

Messaging & Web Security at Symantec Vision 2010 in Barcelona

Ian McShane | 01 Sep 2010 | 4 comments

I can't quite believe it's September already, this year is flying by at a crazy pace.
This means that the Symantec Vision conference in EMEA has come around quickly too.

This year, we are at the CCIB in Barcelona, Spain, during the first week of October - Tuesday 5th through Thursday 7th.

Amongst the many, many sessions over the 3 day conference, there are a number of Mail & Web security sessions that you shouldn't miss (not least because I'm co-presenting them ), so in no particular order.

Best Practices for Email Security.
Anatomy of a Web Attack.
Hands On Lab - Best Practices for installing and Configuring Symantec Brightmail Gateway.
Hands On Lab - Best Practices for installing and Configuring Symantec Web Gateway.

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Join hashtag #MailSec and learn more about the dangers of targetted email attacks and how to prevent them.

Symantec Email Submissions Client

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