GFI MailEssentials Software

Server-based, Multi-Layered Anti-spam Solution Used by Thousands of customers, Worldwide

The most effective way to beat spammers at their game is to use GFI MailEssentials™, a leading anti-spam solution that has won several awards.

GFI MailEssentials features two anti-spam engines, which combine with its agile anti-spam methodologies to give administrators protection from each new attack without the need to tweak GFI MailEssentials. IP reputation filtering, Bayesian filtering, greylisting, directory harvesting attack protection and other advanced anti-spam technologies are also included, ensuring the safe delivery of important emails.

Shipping at a highly competitive price, GFI MailEssentials has been designed for ease-of-use. With its agile anti-spam methodologies, not only will administrators benefit from out-of-the-box filtering, but they will also gain protection from each new attack without the need to tweak GFI MailEssentials. IP reputation filtering, Bayesian filtering, greylisting, directory harvesting attack protection and other advanced anti-spam technologies are also included, ensuring the safe delivery of important emails.

GFI MailEssentials detects and blocks phishing emails, and adds email management tools to your mail server, including disclaimers, mail monitoring, Internet mail reporting, list server, server-based auto replies and POP3 downloading.

GFI MailEssentials Benefits:

• Established solution
  Thousands of customers worldwide use GFI MailEssentials and it has won several awards.
• Ultra high spam detection rate
  GFI MailEssentials delivers one of the highest spam capture rates in the industry, over 99%.
• Ultra low false positives
  Incorporating multiple anti-spam modules and technologies, it dramatically reduces false positives.
• Compatibility
  Supports industry-leading messaging platforms including Microsoft Exchange 2003, 2007, 2010 and Lotus Domino.
• Easy to use
  Designed for ease-of-use, offering administrators an ultra-high spam capture rate with minimal configuration.
• Highly competitive price
  Benefit from tried and tested out-of-the-box filtering at SMB-friendly prices.

Why Choose GFI MailEssentials as Your Exchange Anti-spam Filter?

• Thousands of installations worldwide, and winner of many awards
• Ultra high spam detection rate (over 99%) through various anti-spam technologies
• Ultra low rate of false positives
• Tried and tested server-based anti-spam software at a highly competitive price
• Support for  industry-leading messaging platforms including Microsoft Exchange 2003, 2007, 2010 and Lotus Domino

What's New in GFI MailEssentials™ 2010?

GFI MailEssentials version 2010 builds on GFI MailEssentials 14 by further improving on spam capture rate and manageability.

Some of the new features in GFI MailEssentials 2010 include:

Greylisting
This feature is an anti-spam technique used to identify spam emails originating from non-RFC compliant mail servers (which are often utilized by spammers). For each new SMTP transmission, GFI MailEssentials records the sender, recipient and sending mail server’s IP address (aka triplet) and rejects any emails with a temporary failure message. Compliant email servers try and resend the message after a few minutes – this causes their triplet to be confirmed and connections with the same triplet are no longer rejected. Non-compliant mail servers do not try to resend the message.

Spam Quarantining
The administrator can select to quarantine spam emails. Spam emails are stored in a database and are automatically deleted after a pre-defined period of time.  The administrator can also select to send a spam digest with information on quarantined emails. From the spam digest, users can review their spam emails, and approve them as required. The administrator is allowed full access to the quarantined emails.

Auto-log rotation     
Administrators can select to log occurrences (such as blocked or whitelisted mail) and configure to start a new log file after a pre-defined period of time or at a specific size.

Filtering and sorting of logging
Dashboard entries can be filtered; this makes it very easy to locate logging for a particular email.

Tailored Disclaimers
User-specific information can now be retrieved from Active Directory to personalize the disclaimer per sender.

Context-sensitive help
Context-sensitive help has now been added in the GFI MailEssentials configuration.

Features:

SpamRazer™ - A Powerful Anti-spam Engine
SpamRazer is a powerful anti-spam engine that has been designed for ease-of-use. Due to frequent updates, SpamRazer needs no tweaking to be fully effective in filtering the latest spam attacks. Not only will administrators benefit from out-of-the-box filtering but they will also gain protection from each new attack without the need to tweak GFI MailEssentials. With SpamRazer filtering, greylisting, IP reputation filtering, Bayesian filtering and other advanced anti-spam technologies, our spam capture rate is over 99%. GFI MailEssentials also has an enviable low rate of false positives ensuring the safe delivery of important emails.

Greylisting
Greylisting is an anti-spam technique used to identify spam emails originating from non-RFC compliant mail servers (which are often utilized by spammers). For each new SMTP transmission, GFI MailEssentials records the sender, recipient and sending mail server’s IP address (aka triplet) and rejects any emails with a temporary failure message. Compliant email servers try and resend the message after a few minutes – this causes their triplet to be confirmed and connections with the same triplet are no longer rejected. Non-compliant mail servers do not try to resend the message.

Spam Quarantining
The administrator can select to quarantine spam emails. Spam emails are stored in a database and are automatically deleted after a pre-defined period of time.  The administrator can also select to send a spam digest with information on quarantined emails. From the spam digest, users can review their spam emails, and approve them as required. The administrator is allowed full access to the quarantined emails.

Precise Real-time Dashboard
GFI MailEssentials also ships with a precise, real-time dashboard that gives administrators a graphic view of the software’s status as well as the server’s email flow. Components shown on the dashboard are:  status of key services provided by GFI MailEssentials, statistics of email flow, blocked spam and,   POP2Exchange logging and results which can be filtered by sender, recipient, subject, etc.

Auto-log rotation
Administrators can select to log occurrences (such as blocked or whitelisted mail) and configure to start a new log file after a pre-defined period of time or at a specific size.

Spam Digest
Administrators can now send a daily report to the users that shows how many emails he or she received and how many emails, identified as spam, were filtered. A snapshot of email traffic will show the end-user how much spam email was successfully captured. The report gives a full list of those emails identified and filtered.

Eliminate Hard-to-Catch Spam
With spammers controlling tens of thousands of zombie machines, these large botnet armies have become one of the leading sources of spam. The Botnet/Zombie check, in GFI MailEssentials, eliminates hard to catch attachment spam such as image spam, PDF spam, Excel and ZIP spam. The attachment spam check filters this attachment spam quickly, efficiently and with a very low rate of false-positives. GFI MailEssentials uses two anti-spam filter engines and a variety of technologies such as greylisting and IP reputation filtering.

Support for Unicode
GFI MailEssentials also supports Unicode. This means that GFI MailEssentials supports the industry standard for universal character encoding. This update GFI MailEssentials to process emails in any language, and ensures that all characters are rendered properly.

Localized into German, Spanish, Italian and Russian
GFI MailEssentials is available in Russian, Spanish, Italian and German. Localization gives users the ability to install and run GFI MailEssentials in their native language.

Server-based Anti-spam and Anti-phishing
GFI MailEssentials is server-based and installs on the mail server or at the gateway, eliminating the deployment and administrative hassle of desktop-based anti-spam and anti-phishing products. A server-side solution will prevent your server message stores from filling up with spam and eliminate the need to train your users on the creation and update of anti-spam rules.

Bayesian filtering: an advanced method to detect spam
Bayesian filtering, which uses a mathematical approach based on known spam and ham, is an effective way to catch spam. GFI’s Bayesian filter has a tremendous advantage over other spam solutions that only check for keywords or rely on downloading signatures of known spam as it uses an advanced mathematical formula coupled with a dataset that is custom-made for your installation: Spam data is continuously updated by GFI and is automatically downloaded by GFI MailEssentials, whereas the ham data is automatically collected from your own outbound mail. This means that the Bayesian filter is constantly learning new spam tricks; spammers cannot circumvent the dataset used. This results in an exceptionally high spam detection rate, after the required automated two-week learning period. In short, Bayesian filtering has the following advantages:

• Looks at the whole spam message, not just keywords or known spam signatures
• Learns from your outbound email and therefore greatly reduces false positives
• Adapts itself over time by learning about new spam and new valid emails
• Dataset is unique to your company, making it impossible to bypass
• Multilingual and international

Downloads Updates to Spam Profile Database
GFI MailEssentials can download updates to the Bayesian spam profile database from the GFI site, ensuring that it recognizes the latest spam and spamming techniques. GFI maintains the spam profile database by working with a number of spam collection organizations that continually supply spam samples.

Protect your users Against the Menace of Phishing Emails
GFI MailEssentials’ anti-phishing module detects and blocks threats posed by phishing emails by comparing the content of the spam with a constantly updated database of phishing URLs, thereby ensuring all the latest phishing emails are captured. As extra protection, it also looks for typical phishing keywords in every email sent to your organization.

Sort Spam to Users' Junk Mail Folders
GFI MailEssentials gives you the flexibility to choose what to do with spam. You can delete it, move it to a folder, forward the spam mail to a public email address or folder, quarantine it or send it to individual customizable folders (for example, a junk mail folder) in the end-users' inboxes. You can also select multiple actions as required. This allows you to sort spam and to easily review mail that has been flagged as spam.

List Server for Newsletter Lists and Discussion Lists
A list server is the best method for distributing company newsletters, since it automates the process of allowing users to subscribe and unsubscribe (required by anti-spam regulations). However, until now, list servers have been expensive and difficult to administer and they did not integrate with Exchange Server. GFI MailEssentials integrates with Exchange and can use Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server as the backend. Both newsletter lists and discussion lists are supported.

Easy Tuning of the Bayesian Engine via Public Folders
Administrators can easily tune the Bayesian engine by dragging and dropping spam or ham to the appropriate public folder. GFI MailEssentials learns from the spam and ham that it picks up from these folders and further improves its spam detection rate. Administrators can control access to this feature through the use of Public Folder security.

Allow Users to Whitelist or Blocklist via Public Folders
GFI MailEssentials allows users to Whitelist or Blocklist senders simply by dragging and dropping the appropriate mail to a public folder. This gives users more control and reduces administration. Administrators can control access to this feature through the use of Public Folder security.

Email Header Analysis and Keyword Checking
GFI MailEssentials intelligently analyzes the email headers and disclaimers and identifies spam based on message field information. It detects forged headers, encoded IPs, spam mutation, spam sent from invalid domains, and more. It also enables you to configure keywords to check for spam using keyword checking.

Third Party DNS Blocklists (DNSBL) Checking
GFI MailEssentials supports DNS blocklists (real time blocklists), which are databases of known spammers. If the sending mail server is on one of those lists, it marks the email as spam. GFI MailEssentials supports popular third party blocklists, such as SpamHaus and Spamcop, and also enables administrators to configure custom RBL servers.

Support for Multiple Third Party URI DNS Blocklists
GFI MailEssentials checks links in emails against URI DNS Blocklists. Administrators can configure multiple URI DNSBLs, add their own and also define priorities for which server should be checked first.

Automatic Whitelist Management Reduces False Positives
Whitelists enable you to ensure that email from particular senders or domains are never flagged as spam, permitting more stringent anti-spam rules. GFI MailEssentials includes a patent-pending automatic Whitelist management tool, which adds outgoing mail recipients to your Whitelist. This greatly reduces false positives without any need for additional administration. Whitelists can also be built based on domain names, email addresses and keywords.

Active Directory Disclaimers
The disclaimers can be automatically tailored for the sender of the message by including information about the sender. Administrators can select to include information about the sender from Active Directory.

Instant View of Emails from New Senders
The New Senders feature provides users with an instant view of emails sent from people with whom they have not had previous contact, thereby helping users to better organize emails in their email client. If GFI MailEssentials does not identify an email as spam and yet it is not on the Whitelist, then the New Senders module can move that email to a user's subfolder, for example, Inbox – New Senders.

Eliminates Directory Harvesting
Spammers often try to guess recipient addresses by generating multiple random email addresses at a domain; they then send their spam mail to all those addresses. GFI MailEssentials checks the validity of ALL the email addresses included in the mail sent, either via a query to Active Directory or through support for LDAP, and if they are not all valid, marks the mail as spam. Directory Harvesting can optionally be done at the initial stage of the SMTP transmission, thus eliminating any traffic that is generated by this type of spam.

Reports on Spam Filtering and Email Usage
The database-driven reporting engine allows you to create advanced reports on your inbound and outbound email. You can report on the amount of spam filtered and on rules which caught most spam. You can also generate reports on user, domain and mail server usage.

Support for SPF – the Sender Policy Framework
As most of today’s spammers spoof email addresses, it is important to be able to check whether an email is genuine or if it has been sent from a forged sending address. This can be done via the Sender Policy Framework (SPF), which allows users to test whether a particular email originates from its claimed source. The GFI MailEssentials SPF module automatically checks whether the mail from a particular company was actually sent by its registered mail servers.

For more on SPF, visit http://www.openspf.org.

Set Priorities for Each Anti-spam Module
You can configure which method of capturing spam is to be given priority and create your own hierarchical list. For example, the administrator can select for our whitelisting anti-spam feature to be applied first to all incoming mail, then Bayesian scanning, and so on.

List Server for Newsletter Lists and Discussion Lists
A list server is useful for distributing company newsletters, automating the process of allowing users to subscribe and unsubscribe (required by anti-spam regulations). However, list servers have traditionally been expensive and difficult to administer and few integrated with Exchange Server. GFI MailEssentials integrates with Exchange and can use Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server as the backend. Both newsletter lists and discussion lists are supported.

Company-wide Disclaimer, Header and Footer text
GFI MailEssentials enables you to add disclaimers to the top or bottom of an email. Text and HTML formats are supported. You can include fields and variables to personalize the disclaimer. You can even create multiple disclaimers and associate them with a user, group or domain.

Email Monitoring
The email monitoring feature enables you to keep a central store of the email communications for a particular person or department. By configuring email to be copied to an email address, all email can be stored in an Exchange or Outlook store, making searching much easier.

Email Archiving to an SQL Database
GFI MailEssentials can archive all inbound and outbound mail to a Microsoft SQL Server database. You can search for a particular email or an entire email thread via the included web interface.

For a complete email archiving solution, please check out GFI MailArchiver™ for Exchange.

Seamless integration with Exchange Server, Lotus Domino and other SMTP servers
GFI MailEssentials integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Exchange 2003/2007/2010. It installs on the Exchange SMTP service and does not require gateway configuration. It also works with Exchange 5.5/2000, Lotus Domino and other popular SMTP/POP3 servers via the SMTP protocol.

Content Checking, Antivirus and Anti-trojan
Get antivirus, email content checking and anti-trojan protection for your mail server with the GFI MailDefense Suite™. GFI MailSecurity™ for Exchange/SMTP is an email content checking, exploit detection, threats analysis and antivirus solution that removes various types of email-borne threats before they can affect your email users.

Support for Virtual Environments
Organizations that are currently using or plan to use virtualization on their network can still install and use a range of GFI products with confidence. GFI MailEssentials supports and runs on the most common virtualization technologies in use, namely VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server and Microsoft Hyper-V.

Other Features:

• Whitelisting of emails by keyword
• Blocking foreign language spam based on character set
• Email monitoring of a particular user's or department's email communications
• Fake non-delivery reports (NDRs)
• Personalized server-based auto replies with tracking number
• POP3 downloader
• Web interface for searching email archive

Specifications:

System requirements: Hardware

Processor

• Minimum: Intel Pentium or compatible 1 GHz 32-bit processor
• Recommended: x64 architecture-based server with Intel 64 architecture or AMD64 platform.

Memory

• Minimum: 1GB
• Recommended: 2GB RAM

Physical Storage

• Minimum: 500MB for installation, 2GB for execution.
• Recommended: 500MB for installation, 4GB for execution

System Requirements: Software

Supported operating systems

• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Standard/Enterprise (x86 or x64)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard/Enterprise (x86 or x64)
• Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 - Standard edition
• Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 - Standard edition
• Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 (SP1)

Mail Servers

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 (SP2)
• Lotus Domino 6 or higher
• Any SMTP compliant email server

Other components

• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
• Microsoft Message Queuing Services
• Microsoft XML core services: For UK/US English OS this is installed automatically by GFI MailEssentials. For other languages, this can be downloaded from:
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3144B72B-B4F2-46DA-B4B6-C5D7485F2B42&displaylang=en
• Microsoft Virtual Server cluster group resource with a physical disc cluster. This is required only for environments running Microsoft Exchange 2003 clusters.
• MDAC 2.8 (included by default on Windows 2003 or later). This can be downloaded from: http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6C050FE3-C795-4B7D-B037-185D0506396C&displaylang=en
• IIS SMTP service (except for Microsoft Exchange 2007/2010 environments)
• IIS 6 or 7 WWW service when using Quarantine or Archive Web Interface
• Microsoft Exchange Server MAPI Client and Collaboration Data Objects 1.2.1 when installing on Microsoft Exchange 2007 or 2010. This can be downloaded from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=E17E7F31-079A-43A9-BFF2-0A110307611E&displaylang=en

Screenshots:

Click on a thumbnail to see that picture in full size!

 

Awards and Reviews:

	2010 Computing Security Awards Finalist GFI MailEssentials™, GFI EndPoint Security™ and GFI MailArchiver™ are all Finalists in the 2010 Computing Security Awards - September 2010
	GFI MailEssentials for Exchange/SMTP voted MSExchange.org Readers' Choice Award Winner GFI MailEssentials for Exchange/SMTP was selected the winner in the Antispam category of the MSExchange.org Readers' Choice Awards - MSExchange.org, July 2010
	GFI MailEssentials and GFI MailSecurity Review - Excellent installation, integration and customer support "These products are well worth looking at for protection of your email infrastructure. It's not too often a tool meets ALL my requirements, well done." - Reviewboard Magazine, June 2010
	ExchangeServerPro gives a detailed review of GFI MailEssentials Paul Cunningham gives a thorough review of GFI MailEssentials and goes through all the installation steps and uses of the product - ExchangeServerPro.com, January 12, 2010
	GFI MailEssentials awarded WM Pro Editor's Choice Award Dutch magazine Winmagpro.nl have awarded GFI MailEssentials the WM Pro Editor's Choice Award for June 2009 due to its high spam capture rate, very few false positives, good cost/quality ratio and the fact that it requires relatively little configuration - Winmagpro.nl, June 2009
	Best Channel Product 2009 Award Five Best Channel Product Awards organized by Business Solutions Magazine have been given to GFI's products. GFI rated exceptionally well in the Network Security category and very high in terms of ease of upgrade and VAR's ability to service the product. The winning products are: GFI MailArchiver, GFI MailEssentials, GFI EndPointSecurity, GFI WebMointor and GFI MAX, the latest offering from GFI specifically for VARs, MSPs and IT support companies.
	GFI MailEssentials: Excellent anti-spam solution for SMBs In a review of GFI MailEssentials™ on Brighthub.com, reviewer Tom Olzak says the product is “an excellent solution for stopping spam from reaching employee mailboxes and for combating phishing”. He comments positively on the feature set, adding that “although not as hands-off as an appliance- or service-based solution, GFI MailEssentials is very easy to manage if you have on-site IT staff. Other than the auto-stop for licensing issues, I couldn't find anything I didn't like.” - Brighthub.com, November 2008
	GFI MailEssentials wins Readers Choice Award For the fourth year running, MailEssentials™, an anti-spam and anti-phishing solution, has won the MSExchange.org Readers’ Choice Award in the Exchange Server Anti-Spam category. The Reader’s Choice Awards give visitors to the MSExchange.org site the opportunity to vote for the products they view as the very best in their respective category. GFI MailEssentials can be installed on a Microsoft Exchange server or SMTP gateway and stops over 98% of spam. - MSExchange.org, August 2008
	GFI MailEssentials: Protect Your SMTP or Exchange Servers from Viruses and SPAM In a review on ss Security section, Ryan Groom finds GFI MailEssentials™, an anti-spam and anti-phishing solution at server level, to be “a simple yet highly effective tool that belongs in any organization that looks after its own email solutions. GFI Mail Essentials is cost effective, simple to use and most importantly reliable”. He also adds that he was “pleasantly surprised with the simplistic yet highly functional product”. The review gives the product 4.5 out of 5 stars. - About.com, June 2008
	GFI MailEssentials wins Global Product Excellence Award GFI has been awarded the Global Product Excellence Award for GFI MailEssentials™ in the anti-spam category. The awards, organized by Infosecurity Products Guide, recognize and honor excellence in all areas of information security. GFI beat off stiff competition from McAfee, PineApp Corp., St. Bernard Software and Engate Technology Group. - Infosecurity Products Guide, February 2008
	GFI MailEssentials wins Editor's Choice Award 2008 GFI MailEssentials™ has won the Editor’s Choice Award 2008 from Communications Week magazine. The magazine (pg 32 of the 18 February 2008 issue) said that the product “is the perfect way for a company to manage spam with detection and quarantine capabilities that is rock solid”. - Communications Week, February 2008
	HP Converged Infrastructure Ready Certification GFI Software, an HP alliance partner has been certified HP Converged Infrastructure Ready - demonstrating GFI's expertise in delivering solutions that are Converged Infrastructure compliant.
	GFI MailEssentials wins IT Week Magazine’s ‘Editor’s Choice’ award IT Week Magazine, a digital publication, has selected ls™ for Exchange/SMTP as the 2007 Editor’s Choice winner for significantly cutting down on spam as well as for its pricing and functionality. “If your company is looking for an effective method to distinctly cut down on spam in an effective manner, then you’ll want to check out GFI MailEssentials for Exchange/SMTP. You can expect the software to block more than 98% of all spam email that attempts to reach corporate users,” the magazine said. It added that the product is quite easy to install and highlighted the benefit that it can be installed on Microsoft’s Exchange or any other SMTP server. - IT Week Magazine, January 2007
	98% spam detection rate for GFI MailEssentials GFI MailEssentials™ for Exchange/SMTP has been awarded the Checkmark Anti-Spam Premium Certificate for staying “ahead of competitive products”. The product obtained a 98% spam detection rate which was above the Checkmark requirements and also achieved “a 100% valid email identification rate; ensuring that no legitimate email was blocked”. Other product benefits included low system requirements with the set-up process being described as “remarkably fast and pain-free”. - West Coast Labs, January 2007