N-Guard
Software and hardware can’t fight spam and viruses like a managed service.
There are times when self-service options make sense – online banking, Internet travel arrangements, and Web-based ticket reservations. But for services such as email and web defense, the statement “our people make the difference” is much more than a slogan.
Many anti-spam and antivirus email solutions are delivered as plug-in appliances, which are “boxes” or hardware that plug into a corporate network. The appliances contain software that scans and filters messages for spam, viruses or other email-based problems. No people required.
N-Guard has a different approach, recognizing the value of human innovation and intervention. N-Guard offers anti-spam, anti-virus and email defense solutions that are managed by people, and the comprehensive protection they provide far surpasses the protection provided by in-house appliances.
How does N-Guard work?
N-Guard services remove spam from the email stream before it ever reaches your infrastructure. This approach greatly reduces the burden on your email server as well as your administrator and users. In addition, N-Guard offers outside-the-perimeter protection for denial of service and directory harvest attacks. These sorts of attacks are deflected so your firewall and mail server never feel the impact. The key to a managed service is the people – a 24x7 staff of email threat experts who monitor billions of messages a month looking for patterns in spam, identify new types of spam threats, and tweak the various spam filtration mechanisms. Their efforts are focused on maintaining the highest level of spam detection and minimizing the frequency of falsely-identified messages (false positives). These people-inspired benefits are not available in any desktop software, at any price.
Layers of protection that can’t fit in a box
N-Guard does not rely on a single technology to detect spam. While many appliances use open source spam filters, the N-Guard® Email Defense Service uses the patented technology in its Stacked Classification Framework to rate a particular message for spam likeliness. The framework consists of more than a dozen technologies that work together to prevent spam from entering your network. The filtering hardware is maintained in Tier I certified data facilities. Although the filters are based on intelligent programming, they are designed by skilled technicians and monitored, evaluated and tweaked by the N-Guard Threat Center to maintain maximum effectiveness.
Spotting a virus requires more than a computer chip
In addition to spam-filtering prowess, N-Guard managed services also protect your business against viruses. The N-Guard Email Defense Service provides multilayer antivirus filtering using McAfee®, Sophos® and Authentium® as well as its proprietary WormTraqTM technology designed to quickly detect and stop mass mailing worms like SoBig, Sober.z and the recent Storm Worm outbreaks. The N-Guard Threat Center team monitors and updates its commercial engine signatures every five minutes and blocks virus-laden email before it reaches your network. In addition to virus filters, the Email Defense Service also applies content and attachment policy enforcement to protect you from outside threats.
Outage protection is never in the box
N-Guard Message Continuity provides Web-based email access, management and use, and 60 rolling days of storage. During an outage, all inbound and outbound mail continues to be filtered and when connectivity has been restored, all outage-period email activity is intelligently synchronized with your primary system. With N-Guard Fail Safe Service, you are protected against mail server outages. The service holds email in an encrypted queue in the event that your mail server is unreachable, and it begins spooling the mail after the server is back online. No software package can provide these benefits.
Self-service managed by the best people
There is a time and a place for self-service, and N-Guard provides a Web-based interface that allows you hands-on access and administration of the N-Guard Email Defense Service. Through the N-Guard Control Console, you have a single point of administration where you can manage group and individual policies, rules, reporting, and more.
N-Guard thinks outside the box so you never need to install or maintain hardware or software. And you can speak with a real, live person whenever you want, which is far more rewarding than talking to a box! People really do make the difference.