Outbound Email Filtering – Data Loss Prevention

Auto User Provisioning (SMTP discovery), by default, will automatically add unregistered users to the service when three valid messages are received from that unique address (within 30 days), or one valid message has been sent outbound from your email server via the Spambrella Platform. (These settings can be customized by an Administrator). SMTP Discovery can be enabled/disabled from your Organisation’s Spam settings tab in the Spambrella interface.

When a new account is detected, it will be added to the Discovered list under the SMTP Discovery tab in the Users & Groups section of the user interface. Every Thursday, a notification email will be sent to the Organisation Admin with a list of the newly discovered accounts. From this email, the Org Admin can choose to add these accounts as new End Users or mark them as invalid. By default, if a discovered account is not marked as a new user by the Org Admin within 3 weeks, a new End User will be created for that account, unless the option ‘Expired Addresses Default to New User’ is disabled under the Organisation SMTP Discovery settings. In that case, the account would be marked as invalid. Please note that any accounts on that invalid list will not be able to receive mail once they are added to the invalid list.

Question: How often is the SMTP Discovered list updated?

Answer: The SMTP Discovered list is updated with newly discovered non-registered email addresses 4 times a day. 

This also depends on organization settings in place for SMTP Discovery. For example, the default value for “Inbound Detection Threshold” is 3. Therefore a non-registered SMTP address will not be reported until it has been identified 3 times. Once it meets this threshold it is added to the SMTP Discovered list. This occurs 4 times per day.

Considerations:

As SMTP Discovery can automatically create users for mail sent to valid addresses including both primary addresses and aliases, it is advised to manually add addresses to existing aliases to avoid the creation of multiple accounts.

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Encrypting Emails – When should you start?

Requesting Bulk Email Limit Increase

When moving from one filtering service to another, or setting up for the first time, there are steps to include when setting up Spambrella that may be forgotten outside of our standard steps.

Remember to add in our IP ranges into your firewall.

However, adding to your firewall is not enough, specifically in the case of an existing filtering service going to your mail server. Your mail server itself may have other security protocols in place, especially if using a Microsoft Exchange environment.

Inbound Mail

Like the firewall settings, your mail server may have specific IP ranges that accept mail. Please make sure to add in the Spambrella IP ranges into your current mail server security settings. This is especially important for when moving from a different filtering service and you are only accepting mail your previous providers IPs.

Note: The Spambrella logs will indicate we will be setting your mail status as “Deferred” if we cannot talk to your mail server.

Outbound Mail

For outbound mail, although you may have set-up the smarthost properly, this does not mean mail will flow to the Spambrella smarthost. If you have specific rules in place please check your rules to see if any exist that could contradict sending to the Spambrella server.

Note: Spambrella support would not be able to easily assist you on this. If mail does not flow into our server via SMTP, we would not see anything at all, even in our logs. You would need to diagnose this on your mail server, hence please check your outbound rules and logs first.

Situation – The console has four phases of deployment. During your rollout/deployment, you want to know what order to deploy each phase and what each phase includes.

Solution – Manage your Essentials console in the following sequence.

• Activation
• Pilot
• Rollout
• Maintenance

For the smoothest deployment possible, you should go through the following four phases:

1. Activation

This gives you access to the Administration Console, with one administrative account, one organization, and one server.

2. Pilot

Add a small group of users and possibly additional administrators. Set up your service.

3. Rollout

Using LDAP Discovery, add your remaining users and domains, and set the filter configurations and access levels as required.

4. Maintenance

On-going support of your users and servers. This may require adjusting filter settings, managing users and domains, and adding new or configuring existing email servers.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q. What packages is Data Loss Prevention included in? 

• Data Loss Prevention is included in the Business, Advanced and Professional package.

 Q. How is Data Loss Prevention enabled? 

• Data Loss Prevention can be enabled or disabled on the Spambrella features page.
• Data Loss Prevention is disabled by default.
• At present, only Spambrella Admins and Spambrella Staff can enable the DLP feature.

Q. Do the logs report on Scan information? 

• No. Logs will only indicate which filter caught the message but it will not identify the Smart Identifier or Dictionary.

Q. Can a user see the terms included in the dictionary? 

• No, not as this time. Please enquire with support.

Q. Does Spambrella support custom dictionaries?

• No, not as this time although custom content filters can be created.

Q. Is Data Loss Prevention available for customers on trial? 

• Yes.

Q. How do I know Data Loss Prevention is enabled?

• On the Company Settings main page: Data Loss prevention will state “Active.”
• Go to the Filters. When creating a filter, two new items appear:
• Smart Identifier Scan
• Dictionary Scan

Spambrella does filter outbound email for SPAM. If a message is not delivered it will be recorded in the Email Logs and can be released to the intended recipient. Please note that similar messages of this nature are likely to be quarantined in future. 

Email spoofing is the creation of email messages with a forged sender address. It is easy to do because the core protocols do not have any mechanism for authentication. It can be accomplished from within a LAN(Local Area Network) or from an external environment. Spam and phishing emails typically use such spoofing to mislead the recipient about the origin of the message.

By adding SPF (Sender Policy Framework) records to your existing DNS information, this will increase the chances that any spoofed email will be detected and is an added security measure, as all incoming emails will have the sender information validated.  Please note that by adding an SPF record does not make this 100% full proof.

Here are some external articles about spoofing:

https://help.aol.com/articles/what-is-email-spoofing-and-how-can-i-tell-if-my-account-has-been-spoofed

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/50200?hl=en

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spoofing

Below are the SPF records, please use the one relevant to your platform.

SPF Records

US1

“v=spf1 a:dispatch-us.ppe-hosted.com ~all”

EU1

“v=spf1 a:dispatch-eu.ppe-hosted.com ~all”

Please Note: Spambrella does not block an email outright for the SPF entry. This is because there are a large number of domains that have an incorrect SPF record. We will just increase the overall spam score.

A soft fail (~all) will increase the spam score moderately (which may not quarantine a message dependent on your spam threshold specified) whereas a hard fail (-all) will increase the score aggressively and quarantine the message if triggered.

The Instant Replay feature allows users to send (or resend) an email from Spambrella to their messaging server. This may be useful in the following situations:

• The original email failed to be delivered (bounced/expired)
• The original email was deleted by the user

If a user is attempting to send an email that has already been sent, they should be aware that if the email already exists in the destination server’s database then many mail systems may not deliver the email again. This will depend on the mail system in use and how it handles duplication.

Microsoft Exchange, for example, has a default duplicate database setting of 7 days. This means if an email comes in with the same messageID and client submit time within 7 days of the original, it will delete it as a duplicate. Therefore the user who uses Instant Replay feature to resend an email less than 7 days old will not get the message.

If you are using Microsoft Exchange and wish to enable retrieving messages within 7 days of receipt of the original, please follow the instructions on how to change this setting, available here.

If you are using another email application you should investigate to see if you have the option to adjust this value.

Instant Replay Feature is available only for the customers who have subscribed to the Business or Professional packages.

Please Note: This feature cannot be used with customers using Office 365 as a mailbox. This is due to how Office 365 handles duplicate message detection.

Spambrella is available in 4 service packages [Click here to see them]

• Beginner
• Business
• Advanced
• Professional

Partners – When selecting the package type you require for your customer, you are able to choose the appropriate features and modules for your needs contained within a package. Also, you can upgrade, downgrade, or change a user’s license by following the instructions below:

1) Adding / Decreasing Users’ Licences.

Adjust the user Licence number to the required amount and select save button at the bottom of the screen.

• If additional users are added, your Billing and Technical contact will be informed of the change.
• The appropriate entity will then receive a prorated invoice for the changed user count.

2) Enable User capping.

Enabling this feature will not allow customers to add users above the number in the license field. This is useful for partners who sell an annual prepaid agreement and do not want to be billed for any users above that licensed amount, and it forces the customer to contact the partner to order more licenses and be able to add them to the system.

2) Upgrading.

• When selecting an upgrade, you are automatically granted a 14 day trial to the upgraded service.
• After 14 days, you will have the opportunity to confirm the upgrade or continue using your current version.
• If upgraded packages are confirmed invoicing will be charged at a prorated.

3) Downgrading.

• If you wish to downgrade to an alternate package, click on the downgrade button and save your changes.
• The Billing and Technical contact will be informed by email of this decision and the changes will be applied straightaway.

4) Licensing of Users.

• Spambrella does not bill for: Domains, Shared mailboxes/Distribution groups, aliases, etc.
• Spambrella does bill for: Active primary user accounts on any domain (beating hearts).

Auto User Provisioning (SMTP Discovery)

Change a user to a Functional Account

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