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Trend Micro recognizes the unique dangers posed by security threats to Microsoft Exchange servers. Trend Micro designed ScanMail to protect Exchange from these numerous and diverse security risks. ScanMail uses a filtering strategy to protect Exchange. ScanMail subjects the email message to each filter in the following order:
  • Spam Prevention
  • Advanced Spam Prevention
  • Data Loss Prevention
  • Content Filtering
  • Attachment Blocking
  • Security Risk Scan (advanced threat scan)
  • Web Reputation
In addition, ScanMail provides notifications and log queries to assist administrators to monitor and react to security risks.

How ScanMail Protects the Microsoft Exchange Environment

Feature
Description
Spam Prevention
Email Reputation
ScanMail includes Email Reputation, which allows you to block spam messages before they enter the network.
Content Scanning
ScanMail uses the Trend Micro spam engine and spam pattern file to screen out spam messages before they are delivered to the Information Store. Administrators can create approved and blocked senders lists if End User Quarantine is enabled. If End User Quarantine is enabled, end users can create their own lists of approved senders.
Advanced Spam Prevention
The Advanced Spam Prevention provides configuring ScanMail for Business Email Compromise (BEC) to detect a probable scam or attack using email messages that appear to be from a high profile user, such as, a corporate user from the executive team. You can also configure the whole internal domain of senders for BEC to scan for probably scam or attack.
The Advanced Spam Prevention also provides option to select Conservative or Aggressive mode for scanning. The Aggressive Mode requires Virtual Analyzer to scan content in an isolated virtual environment, while the Conservative Mode scans content using other methods in the absence of Virtual Analyzer.
Data Loss Prevention
ScanMail can filter content for sensitive information in different message parts based on policies set by the administrator. ScanMail filters outgoing email messages and can perform specific actions on email messages that contain sensitive information.
Content Filtering
ScanMail can filter content in a message header, subject, body, and/or attachment based on policies set by the administrator. ScanMail filters incoming and outgoing email messages and can perform specific actions on email messages that contain undesirable content in the message body or attachments.
Attachment Blocking
ScanMail can block undesirable attachments according to administrator-defined types or specific names. During scanning, ScanMail can replace the detected file with a text message and then deliver the message to the intended recipient.
Security Risk Scan
Security risk scan employs one of the following scan engines:
  • Security risk scan uses the latest version of the Trend Micro VSAPI scan engine to detect viruses/malware, spyware/grayware, worms, Trojans, and other malicious code. The Trend Micro scan engine uses pattern recognition and rule-based technologies to scan all incoming and outgoing messages for viruses/malware and other security risks in real time or on-demand.
  • Security risk scan uses the Advanced Threat Scan Engine (ATSE) which employs a combination of pattern-based scanning and heuristic scanning to detect document exploits and other threats used in targeted attacks. Administrators can configure ScanMail to send suspicious files to Virtual Analyzer for further analysis.
    The Advance Threat Scan Engine also uses Predictive Machine Learning to query Trend Micro's cloud service when doing virus scanning for some files, such as, Windows executable file (PE) and script files. In contrast to traditional signature based malware detections, Predictive Machine Learning has more ability to detect malware variants.
Web Reputation
ScanMail queries Trend Micro rating servers and for the reputation rating when an email message with URLs in the message subject, body, or attachment arrives, before delivery to the information store.
ScanMail also optionally queries Trend Micro Deep Discovery Analyzer server for advanced threats detection when an email message with URLs could not be rated by Trend Micro rating servers.
However, administrators can enable approved list and bypass internal domain URLs to avoid scanning trusted URLs.
URL Time-of-Click Protection
The URL Time-of-Click Protection enables you to configure ScanMail to rewrite the URLs in the email message body during scanning, and analyze these URLs only when the message recipient clicks on these URLs.
Real-time Scan
ScanMail guards possible virus/malware entry points with real-time scanning of all incoming and outgoing messages, SMTP messages, documents posted on public folders, and files replicated from other Microsoft Exchange servers. During real time scanning, ScanMail takes actions against security risks according to the administrator’s configurations.
Manual/Scheduled Scans
ScanMail performs manual and scheduled scanning on demand according to a manual prompt or schedule. On demand scanning eliminates viruses/malware from inside the Information Store databases, eradicates old virus/malware infections, and minimizes the possibility of reinfection. When performing a manual or scheduled scan, ScanMail takes actions against security risks depending on the administrator’s configurations.
ScanMail allows the selection of individual Stores for scanning. For example, you can use this option to provide security risk scan and content security for a particular storage groups’ databases, rather than for all storage groups.
Alerts and notifications
ScanMail can send alerts about outbreaks and significant system events. Outbreak alerts notify administrators when the number of detected security risks exceeds a set number. This enables administrators to react quickly to security breaches in their Exchange environment.
Reports and logs
ScanMail provides logs and reports to keep administrators informed about the latest security risks and system status. ScanMail logs significant events such as component updates and scan actions. Administrators can query these events to create log reports providing current and detailed information about the security of the Exchange environment.
ScanMail can generate reports for system analysis that can be printed or exported.