Exchange security s/w recommendations please

[MkII]

We're almost definately moving to exchange this summer.

 

There's a big hoo-hah at our place over safety and monitoring of kids using email - I won't go into that here tho'...

 

What I want to know is... does anyone know of any software to do this stuff?

 

RM's solutions provide what we're looking for:

 

Filtering: where particular users are allowed to send and receive emails to and from. For example, a group of pupils might only be allowed to send and receive email within their school.

 

Content (banned word filtering): mail re-directed to a special staff account.

 

Cheers!

[MkII]

I take it no one actually uses any security software on thier exchange setups then?

 

Seems to have been a big thing a few years back. Our LEA have withdrawn [i'm pretty sire] thier email usage policies for schools.

[GrumbleDook]

Sheesh ... it is half-term for some of us ... we do like to rest once in a while ;-)

 

From what I have seen of a number of mail setups now (not just exchange) the common practice is to have a mail-relay providing the content and virus filtering as mail goes in and out ... but nothing on internal mail as desktop AV software should stop most things.

 

I have seen a few plug-ins for Exchange used (Mail-Marshall, etc) but a good list can be found at slipstick (http://www.slipstick.com/addins/content_control.htm)

 

I suppose we had better look at this too :-(

[Geoff]

I've stuck in a Linux box running Postfix + SpamAssassin + ClamAV to protect our exchange server.

[MkII]

Oh yeah - sorry!!! hehe Roll on Monday [tho' i'm in all week anyway]

 

Not bothered about A/V / spam etc - we got that covered anyway on the LEA mailhub.

 

Thanks, i'll go take a look.

[GrumbleDook]

How do you filter the internal emails? do all messages route through the filter? I think this is what is being looked at by Mark (and it will be by me later in the term)

[MkII]

I'm sure internal emails are not filtered. I know for certain they don't route through the mail hub but stay on the local mail server. hmmm!

[MkII]

Bump!

[Ric_]

Exchange will allow you to set up users who only have internal mail access (i.e. can't send/receive mail from the outside world) or any variation on that.

 

As for checking for abuse, I find a quick trawl at random through the messages reveals all sorts of stuff and you can generally take one anughty kid and catch 5 others at the same time - oh the 'Sent Items' folder

 

If the SMT want more - put forward the case that they probably get up to more naughtiness using the likes of hotmail which cannot be monitored at all within school than they are likely to with a school email account. Using Exchange will then allow you to block access to webmail services at your proxy.

[CyberNerd]

I guess you could get exchange to forward all the emails to a procmail box to get filtered and virus-checked. This won't stop the filtered mail from being sent, just that you will be notified about it. Maybe some of the commercial antivirus firms offer exchange products to filter email?

 

We only give staff access to exchange. The students have accounts on a linux machine that filters internal mail and does all the virus checking as Geoff's set-up.

 

Personally I'd like to get shot of exchange, now if only there was a free groupware product. no, wait...

[MkII]

Right - didn't know that Ric - internal only on selected groups or individuals would be very useful. In fact - exactly what we want to do! Do you have any links/info for that?

 

...and by trawl - do you mean text string search or manually trawling through emails?

 

Cybernerd: stevegrernyffed14 forwards emails to a file for monitoring. Again that could be a target for some sort of search. Notification only would be fine.

 

Thanks guys. I think the searching for grooming type activity is beyond the scope of our legal permissions so we're dropping that one.

 

We're open to opinions on wether or not this is neccessary at all. Some of the SMT think it's overkill and that you should be able to trust kids to a certain extent. We don't do that for internet access of course. Dunno. What do you think?

[tarquel]

Can also setup the journaling system that basically catches ALL emails - received and sent - and set it up with a certain time frame to keep them i.e. 30 days, 3 months, etc.

 

You can then tell no one about this system and log into it like you would any other account and check the abuse you were looking for.

 

Best bet is to use outlook [or similar] and do a search easier than trawling through the large large list of emails on OWA lol [tho it probably searchable in other ways also].

 

It a better solution than setting up a hidden forward of all emails sent - as you get the recieved also ;)

 

Regards

Nath

[MkII]

The school like the idea of journalling - and would like to let eveyone know that we're foing that as a deterrant - y'know "everything you ever send is archived and periodically checked". It's said that this would cover our legal obligations too.

[ITWombat]

The school like the idea of journalling - and would like to let eveyone know that we're foing that as a deterrant - y'know "everything you ever send is archived and periodically checked". It's said that this would cover our legal obligations too.

 

Although we don't have Seban-Oxley in the UK, doesn't the law now require orignsations including schools to store all emails?

Does this mean forever or something like 6 years there is for financial information.

 

The periodic checking is the real iffy part. How do staff unions react to this?

[ind13]

instructions for setting up journaling.

 

 

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Implementing-Exchange-2003-Message-Journaling.html

[Alex]

Content Filtering - Sophos Pure Message (you may well get this free for your lea)

 

Monitors the smtp service and yoinks out anything it doesnt like.

 

http://www.gunstar.34sp.com/filter.jpg

To stop kids having internet mail

 

only give them a .local smtp address - they wont be able to send / recieve emails to the the internet. Give staff proper ones and they will.

 

http://www.gunstar.34sp.com/emails.jpg

 

To stop student sending to staff - use the Delivery Restriction dialogue in ADU&C

 

http://www.gunstar.34sp.com/restrict.jpg