Winning Strategies ENews

AKONIX takes on the IM JPEG virus automatically... Spyware in the Enterprise - why your anti-virus tool can't remove it... Why PlusPack is an essential tool for OWA 2003... Free/Busy versus Realtime, Team-Aware Calendar

October 2004

MailBox Size, Quota, Content/Retention Management- Spyware, Viruses & Worms  - 
e-Discovery & Archiving - Encrypted Email - Availability, Metrics, Alerting 

In This Issue:

Akonix L7 Takes On the IM JPEG Virus... Automatically!

Spyware in the Enterprise - why your anti-virus tool can't remove it.  

Why PlusPack is an essential tool for OWA 2003

Free/Busy Calendar versus Realtime, Team-Aware Calendar... you decide!

PREVIOUS ISSUES

August: Prevent Domino users from sending, saving, deleting mail... Email always backs up when you least expect it... IM worms spread in seconds... Email archiving for Project Workgroups

July: Outlook Team Calendars; Treat Email like the Phone Bill with OmniAnalyser; Sophos PureMessage integrated antispam/anti-virus; 2004 Workplace Email & IM Survey

May: SIGABA Secure EMail & Secure Statements; Websense Client Policy Manager; Archive One & MaXCompression keep attachments where they belong; PST Policy Adminstrator

Copyright © ReSoft International LLC 1997-2004. 
ISSN: 1527-5140
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Akonix L7  takes on the IM JPEG Virus ...automatically
While other solutions are warning about this threat, Akonix identified this virus and automatically updated its products to protect corporations using Akonix L7 Enterprise from the attack. 

This latest vulnerability is an Internet worm that is embedded in a JPEG file and exploits a newly disclosed security flaw in Microsoft software. Once an IM user receives a message that reads "Check out my profile, click GET INFO!" with a link to a URL, malicious code will install 'backdoor' software on the user's PC, allowing hackers to take full control of the victim's computer. All recipients that receive this message will also unknowingly send the message to all of the contacts on their buddy lists. 

Leveraging it's dynamic update and real-time IM content filtering capabilities, Akonix L7 Enterprise defends against IM-borne attacks. Updated SpIM and Malware Filters automatically - and without any IT intervention - download and install to deployed Akonix systems, preventing new threats as soon as they emerge. 

While customers of other IM management systems may receive an email warning from their vendor of the new threat, Akonix is the only IM management company to automatically push out and install security policies to immediately stop the spreading of the latest threat. 
More info:Akonix

SpyWare in the Enterprise - why your anti-virus tool can't remove it!
Internetnews.com reports 92% of corporate IT managers at companies with more than 100 employees claim they have a "major" spyware problem and that nearly 60% of enterprise systems have unsolicited adware embedded on user computers. 

Spyware is structured in an extremely complex way, with some making as many as 20,000 changes to the [Windows] Registry. Remove those changes in the wrong order and things will be worse than when you started. Removing spyware is so complex that its based on a a one-to-one removal method. That's something antivirus vendors are going to be struggling with. It is very hard to retrofit their antivirus engines to handle spyware.

Spy Sweeper Enterprise is composed of a server component, a centralized administrative console to manage deployment of the anti-spyware tools, and a client that's installed in the background by IT to desktops running Windows. New spyware definitions and profiles are regularly downloaded to the server to keep the defense updated, while the administrative console lets IT staff set spyware sweep schedules and anti-spyware policies, generate infection notifications, and produce reports. Administrators can set the server component to automatically handle all new spyware threats--scanning the systems, deleting the spies, and repairing any damage done - or manually review the proposed maneuvers before giving the OK. Spy Sweeper's 'Active Shields' feature aims to protect you while you're surfing and warns you when your system loads spyware into memory, when your browser home page is changed, or. if you wish, when a site places tracking cookies on your system. 

Scans can be forced on systems that reconnect with the network--a laptop, say, brought in from the field and plugged back into the environment. 
More info on SpySweeper

Why PlusPack is an essential tool for OWA2003.
We are seeing increased use of Outlook Web Access as organizations migrate to Exchange 2003. But there are still some significant usability flaws - the built-in spellcheck does not have a customizable dictionary - imagine the spelling errors you will see if your name or your company name is not in the dictionary! OWA spellcheck is only available in Premium Mode which requires three times more horsepower than Basic OWA. It does not offer Outlook style Addressing, only a cumbersome Find Names dialog.  Do your users a favor and look into PlusPack for OWA2003, it overcomes these and many other OWA2003 usability issues.
More Info on PlusPack

Free/Busy Calendar versus Realtime, Team-Aware Calendar... you decide!
Ever tried booking (and re-booking) appointments for multiple users in Outlook? Free/Busy information is open for all to view with no access limitations, replication delays mean a potential free/busy time lag of 1 hour. 

Remove these issues with Exchange Central and it's web based counterpart WebTeam Central  - they gather calendar information from multiple Outlook/Exchange calendars and display in realtime with secured permissions, multiple views and sophisticated group appointment capabilities.
More Info on Exchange Central             More info on WebTeam Central

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