Avira Managed Security AMES FAQ.

Transcription

1 Avira Managed Security AMES FAQ

2 Can AMES be used immediately after an account for our organization has been set up in the MyAccount user portal? Using your account requires a change in the DNS for your domain: the MX data records need to be changed. Adapting the MX data records accordingly means that the s for your domain will be delivered directly to Avira. Our Avira solutions will then filter and scan your traffic and forward the clean s to your mail server. Depending on the situation, either you or your Internet service provider can change your MX data records. I m no longer receiving any s. What could be the cause? 1. The most likely reason is that your mail server is not available. Please check your server settings. 2. Updates to your firewall or switching to a new firewall can block the delivery of messages from the Avira server. 3. The MX data records for the domain were not set correctly. Avira should be listed as the first address in the priority list for mail delivery. You can check these settings in MyAccount and Services. If the settings are correct, you will see the Avira mail server settings in green. If the settings are wrong, they are displayed in red. If you continue to have problems after checking the causes mentioned above, please contact our support team on the phone or by . How can I access MyAccount? You can log into MyAccount anywhere where you have Internet access either via our website or our URL There is a different URL for resellers using an adapted version of MyAccount. My organization uses batch SMTP. Can this be combined with Avira? If you have decided to use Avira Managed Security, you no longer need batch SMTP. Avira will store your s for seven days in case a problem occurs with delivery. During this period, Avira will continue to try to deliver the . What happens to the s if the mail server for our organization is out of service for a certain period of time? If Avira is unable to deliver the s to your server, it will attempt to do so over and over again. As soon as your server is back online, all s will be sent from Avira to your server none of them will be lost. Only after seven days will s that could not be delivered be returned to the sender with an appropriate non-delivery notification. Is it necessary to use other virus scanners in addition to Avira Managed Security in order to keep malware away from our company network? A significant number of harmful programs reach your network via . The vast majority of malware, however, is spread on the web by Exploits, Iframes and other infection mechanisms. Also, employees may use CDs, DVDs or other external data sources that contain viruses or harmful software. For this reason you should always use a local virus scanner to ensure effective protection from these potential risks. What is an open relay and to what extent is it related to spam? An SMTP server (mail server) that accepts s from any computer and forwards them arbitrarily to any third party is referred to as an open mail relay, open relay or third party SMTP relay. Spammers can use these open relay servers to redirect their s to make them more difficult to trace. Many Internet service providers use DNS-based blocking lists to reject s from open relays. If a mail server has already been detected or it is known that it can be used by third parties to send s, it will be placed on a list and other servers that use these lists will reject s from these sites. How can I tell if our mail server is an open relay? To ensure that your server can not be used by spammers, refer to the online test at 1

3 Does Avira Managed Security lead to a delay in the delivery of my s? The average time between the receipt of an at Avira and the first attempt to pass it on to the customer is less than one second. The average varies according to the size of the and temporary peaks in overall traffic. Delivery time rarely exceeds two or three seconds. There is a considerable amount of time between when a third party sends an to my account and the actual moment it arrives in my mailbox. What could be the cause? Sometimes the mail server can not accept the volume of s arriving from Avira due to server settings. The reason could be that there is a lack of sufficient processing resources. Another explanation is Avira s Advanced Greylisting method, which is used for domains with a catch-all setting. Using this method, s from unknown senders are first returned as undeliverable, then, at the second attempted transmission, they are accepted for filtering and scanning. Depending on the settings of the server that is trying to deliver the , the interval between the first and second transmission attempt can last from ten seconds to several minutes. What happens to intercepted viruses and spam that have been detected by Avira s content filters? Under the default setting, unwanted s are isolated in the quarantine area. You can change the settings to immediately delete a malware-infected and/or spam. Avira also allows you to add a comment ( tag ) to the subject line of the . For mails intercepted by spam and content filtering, the tags are ***Spam*** and ***CF***. This way, intercepted s can also be processed by the mail server or on the desktop, using the software settings of the client. Highlighting of unwanted s also allows them to be placed into specific folders. How long are viruses and spam stored in the Avira quarantine area? Viruses are usually stored for 14 days. Spam and messages detected by content filtering are normally isolated and stored in quarantine for 30 days. The three separate quarantine areas may be checked at every desired level using MyAccount. The quarantine areas provide settings in order to adjust the handling of messages according to the user. They also provide various options for sorting and searching the contents of the quarantine area. Why does Avira use Advanced Greylisting? Avira only uses Advanced Greylisting for domains with catch-all settings. Using this setting will lead to many unwanted s being sent to your mailbox. Advanced Greylisting is a way of drastically reducing the amount of spam that must be filtered. If you do not use the catch-all setting and have entered all addresses and aliases, Advanced Greylisting will not be used for your domain. Is it possible to reduce the maximum size accepted for s? Avira accepts s up to a maximum size of 25 MB. Larger s are not accepted. You can reduce the maximum accepted size by clicking on Advanced Settings under the menu item Content Filters. Here you can set the maximum accepted size for the entire domain or for individual users. What do I do if there are messages the quarantine area that do not belong there? The fineness of the filter can be set to five stages. If the spam filter is set to the highest level, s that are technically badly composed will be isolated in the quarantine area, as they have the same characteristics as spam. In the quarantine area you can easily approve isolated s to be sent to your mailbox. When approving the message, you can choose whether the s should be released just this one time (individual release), or you can select Release and Remember, in which case s from this sender will no longer be blocked in future. I have enabled a sender in MyAccount and placed them on the positive list. Does Avira still scan s from a sender on the positive list? Senders that you have placed on a positive list pass through the spam filter, but are still checked by our extensive anti-virus program and content filter. 2

4 How is it possible that I still get spam and viruses, although I use Avira Managed Security? If your server does not have a firewall or is configured so that it blocks all s except those coming from Avira, there is a possibility that s will be delivered directly to your server without being checked by Avira. You will find information on how you can prevent delivery of s that have not been filtered and scanned by Avira in the implementation instructions. I have correctly configured our server and set up a firewall, but I still receive spam. What could be the reason for this? If your domain has to deal with a large amount of spam and you have set the default setting of the spam filter to low security or very low security, you should modify the settings to provide more stringent filtering. Avira s heuristic ProTAG scanner also detects new types of spam. Only if you are among the first to receive this new type of spam is it possible that you will receive it before it can be identified and marked as a new type of spam. Please report the source of any kind of spam mail that you have received to support@avira.com so that we can deter mine the cause. What is a mail source and what are mail headers? The mail source consists of the complete source code of the . In an program like Outlook only part of the code is shown the body of an message. The part of the mail source that is not shown (default setting) is the mail header. The mail header shows the subject of an and gives information about the sender, receiver and the route that the has taken to reach the recipient. Avira can find out the reason why an unwanted has been received by analyzing the mail source. What does Avira do in order to effectively stop viruses? Avira uses a multi-layered process in order to stop viruses. The most important part of Avira s antivirus program is our patented ProTAG engine. ProTAG is a heuristic scanner that scans each individual for new viruses. Using intricately programmed rules, ProTAG is capable of recognizing new types of viruses based on their behavior. With each newly discovered virus, the ProTAG scanner creates further rules and learns in real-time. That s why Avira s anti-virus software is among the most advanced solutions on the market. I already use a virus scanner on my PC or in our network. Is it still necessary for Avira to scan incoming s for viruses? Absolutely! Avira scans millions of s per day, which are sent from all parts of the world. That s how our heuristic ProTAG scanner can detect new viruses very quickly. These viruses are isolated in the quarantine area immediately after detection, and all Avira users are protected against them from that moment on. Traditional anti-virus software requires updates before it can protect your company from new threats. These updates can take anywhere from a few hours up to several days, during which time users are unprotected. Therefore, you should always use Avira anti-virus software. Do I still need a local anti-virus program if I use Avira Managed Security? Yes absolutely! Although many harmful programs reach the computer via , external storage media such as CDs, DVDs or USB sticks can also contain malware. For this reason you should always also utilize a conventional solution to protect your computers against viruses. Does Avira only filter incoming s, or is it also possible to scan outgoing traffic? Using the default settings, only incoming messages are filtered and scanned. But Avira also allows you to check outgoing s for viruses. You can get Avira to check your outgoing traffic via the Relay option in MyAccount. Is it possible to receive notification when a virus was caught by Avira? In MyAccount you can change the default settings in order to receive notification about intercepted s. These notifications are sent to the recipient of the contaminated and if selected to the IT department. 3

5 Is it possible to block certain types of messages or specific senders of s? Yes. Both the spam filters and content filters allow the advanced settings to be used to create customized rules without much difficulty. For example, you can block certain sender addresses or entire sender domain names or block certain kinds of file attachments or content. 4

6 Avira GmbH Lindauer Str Tettnang Germany Phone: Fax: Avira GmbH. All rights reserved. Product and company names mentioned herein are registered trademarks of their respective companies. Our General Terms and Conditions (GTC) and the End User License Agreement (EULA) can be found on the Internet: Errors excepted. Subject to technical changes. As at: September 2010.