AVAS

Qwest Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam

Description

The Qwest Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam solution provides e-mail protection and security services that safeguard corporations from unsolicited spam e-mail, viruses, worms and unwanted content at the network perimeter before they can enter the internal network. Anti-Virus/Anti-spam service features include

• Gateway-based content filtering
• Virus scanning and worm detection
• Web-based interface for monitoring and administration
• Protection from adult content
• E-mail backup support
• Customized safe lists and black lists
• Customized threshold level
• Quarantine reports
• Support 24/7

A secure custom Web site allows authorized administrators access to the quarantined messages to define filtering preferences, create safe lists and black lists, view message reports and statistics, and search the quarantine database. In addition, if a customer's e-mail server goes down for any reason Qwest automatically stores their e-mail for up to five calendar days. Once restored, Qwest automatically delivers their e-mail.

Service details behind the Qwest Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam service.

How it works

The Qwest Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam service is a completely managed security service requiring no additional hardware or software. The customer makes a simple change to their mail exchange (MX) record pointing their original MX record to the Qwest-specified networks MX record. After that change, the service filters all e-mail through the Qwest Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam service prior to reaching their network.

An MX record is an entry in a domain-name database that identifies the mail server responsible for handling e-mail for that domain. In other words, the MX record is like primary postal address to which all the customer's mail is sent. When customers use Qwest Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam, they change their MX record to make the address a Qwest-specified MX record as their primary address, so all e-mail is sent to Qwest first. This conceals the customer's Internet-facing mail servers and gateways and protects them from e-mail-borne attacks.

Qwest is implementing this service in conjunction with MX Logic™. Each e-mail will be sent to a minimum of two local-director load-balanced servers. E-mails, once screened, are forwarded to local-director load-balanced e-mail relay boxes and then sent to their destination. Thus, the service provides a multi-tiered architecture for scanning with minimal lead-time. Each e-mail is subject to multiple layers of defense. Only the e-mail deemed legitimate will ultimately reach the customer.

Features

1. Spam Blocking
   Qwest aggregates the most effective spam filters and techniques in the industry, including the following:
   • Bayesian Statistical Filtering—Statistical algorithms that quantify the possibility that an e-mail message is spam, based on how often elements in that e-mail have appeared in identified spam messages.
   • Industry Heuristics—Thousands of successful industry-wide spam-fighting rules to recognize characteristics of spam.
   • Proprietary Heuristics—Thousands of proprietary rules to block spam including fraudulent phising spam
   • URL Filtering—URL filtering works by comparing embedded links found in e-mail messages with URLs associated with identified spam.
   • Reputation Analysis—Qwest constantly monitors inbound e-mail to build a list of IP addresses and domain names with an indicator of whether each has a tendency to send spam and/or legitimate e-mail.
   • Reputation-Based RBL Filtering—Qwest weighs the results of up to 31 black lists to help gauge the likelihood of an e-mail being sent by a known spammer. Using multiple lists to create a single vote helps to minimize the possibility of a non-spammer being blocked by mistake.
   These filters are used to dynamically calculate the spam probability of every message. Through an aggregation and analysis of these spam-likelihood scores, the multi-layered spam detection system provides extremely effective spam blocking.
2. Virus scanning
   By identifying viruses and worms at the network perimeter before they enter or leave a customer's messaging infrastructure, Qwest minimizes outbreak and infection risks. Customers can configure whether infected e-mails are quarantined, denied, or stripped of infection. Virus definitions are updated every five minutes.
3. Content and attachment filtering
   Qwest can identify unwanted and malicious content and attachments before they enter a customer's network. Customers can configure whether e-mails that violate content or attachment policies are quarantined, denied, stripped, or silent-copied to another e-mail address.
   
   The Qwest Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam service can also detect and remove malicious HTML tags, scripting objects and Web bugs or spam beacons embedded in e-mail messages. Qwest also provides the ability to disable Web hyperlinks received in e-mails.
   
   The service also provides the ability for e-mail administrators to create customized content or keyword filters (profanity, sexual overtones, racially insensitive). If an e-mail contains content that is defined in one of the keyword filters, it can be silent copied to another e-mail address, denied, quarantined or deleted. Reports can also be generated to provide details on the specific e-mails that didn't pass the content filter.
4. Automatic user account provisioning and reporting
   Qwest Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam provides customization on an end-user basis. The Qwest Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam offering provides automatic simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) discovery. The service will automatically create users from successful e-mail message transactions. For example, if the system recognizes e-mail being successfully sent and received for customer/email@example.com, a user account will be created for Customer. Once Customer's account is created, spam reports can be sent to Customer via e-mail that will display all the e-mail that has been quarantined for his e-mail account. If Customer would like to retrieve a particular e-mail, he can do so by clicking on the retrieve link for that particular e-mail.
5. AV/AS Disaster Recovery Service Feature
   The disaster recovery service provides protection against tempfailed e-mails in situations when customers' inbound e-mail server(s) may be unavailable to receive e-mail. The customers' inbound e-mail can be automatically saved (spooled) when the customers' inbound servers become unavailable, and then automatically sent to their e-mail servers (unspooled) when they become available again. Customers also have the option of manually initiating spooling for planned outages or maintenance.
6. Deny and allow lists
   Customers can configure multiple levels of deny lists or sender addresses whose e-mails are denied automatically. Customers can also configure allow lists which will contain e-mail addresses or e-mail domains in which the e-mail will always be accepted without filtering (the exception is that virus filtering is always performed).

Benefits in using a Managed Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam Service

• A managed gateway-based Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam solution moves the burden of dealing with spam and viruses from the end user to a single, managed solution in the network.
• Reduced traffic, processing and storage required on a customer's network, as e-mail is blocked prior to entering the customer network. Qwest blocks on average eight out of every 10 e-mail messages that would ultimately need to be processed, reviewed and stored on the customer's network.
• No single point of failure. Data facilities in Denver and Dallas meet reliability requirements and provide full redundancy and load-balancing. This tandem data center production environment provides immediate disaster recovery and high availability.
• Provides up-to-the-minute, real-time threat monitoring and protection with immediate updates continually and automatically. Qwest can react faster to spamming techniques as Qwest manages many customers and has achieved economies of scale.
• A secure custom Web site allows authorized administrators to access quarantined messages, define filtering preferences, create deny and allow lists, view message reports and statistics, and search the quarantine database.
• If the customer's e-mail server goes down for any reason Qwest automatically stores their e-mail up to five calendar days until the e-mail server is restored. Once restored, Qwest automatically delivers the e-mail.

Trademarks are the property of their respective companies

Qwest® Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam service is available to customers in the U.S. Minimum one-year commitment required. An Internet connection through an Internet service provider is required and may be acquired from Qwest or another provider of your choice. Qwest cannot guarantee all spam, viruses or offensive e-mails will be filtered.