Anti-Spam & Email Security Software Blade

The Checkpoint Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade blocks spam and malware at the connection level by checking the sender’s reputation against a dynamic database of known malicious IP addresses.

Check Point’s unique IP reputation service checks each email connection request against a comprehensive database of IP addresses to determine whether a sender is legitimate or a known sender of spam and malware. If a sender is identified as undesirable, the Anti-Spam & Email Security Software Blade simply drops the connection before a message is even accepted. This layer drops around 70 percent of incoming spam and malicious email without the need for further inspection. The dynamic database of IP addresses is refreshed regularly to ensure that IP addresses no longer exhibiting bad behavior are not blocked indefinitely.

The Anti-Spam & Email Security Software Blade protects against advanced forms of spam, including image-based and foreign-language spam, using pattern-based detection.

Pattern-based anti-spam uses a proprietary algorithm to create unique fingerprint-like signatures of email messages. When a message comes in, its pattern is calculated and checked against a database to determine if the message matches a known email pattern. This approach provides content agnostic protection and effectively blocks spam without looking at any of the actual message content. This makes the Anti-Spam & Email Security Software Blade highly effective against advanced forms of spam that utilize multiple languages, complex images, or slices of images.

The Anti-Spam & Email Security Software Blade utilizes block or allow lists to deny obvious email offenders and allow trusted senders.

Administrators can easily create a list of IP addresses or domains that they would like to either always block or always allow. This method provides an added layer of granularity and ensures that trusted sources are explicitly allowed and unwanted sources are explicitly denied access. The number of blocked IP addresses and domains appears in the summary section for the Block/Allow list in the Messaging Security management tab.

Mail antivirus protects against a wide range of viruses and malware and includes scans of message content and attachments.

Beyond blocking many attacks at a sender level, the Anti-Spam & Email Security Software Blade includes a highly-rated antivirus engine that scans POP3 and SMTP mail protocols. This layer of protection blocks a wide range of known virus and malware attacks, and is at the core of the antivirus defense.

Zero-hour outbreak protection defends against new spam and malware outbreaks by using and distributing an analysis engine.

To address newly developing outbreaks, the Anti-Spam & Email Security Software Blade includes the Check Point unique zero-hour outbreak protection. By analyzing large amounts of messages on a global level, outbreaks are identified along with their corresponding messages. These message patterns are then flagged as malicious, giving the Anti-Spam & Email Security Software Blade the most current information about a given attack. With this information, outbreaks are blocked before a signature may be available, protecting your network in the critical early period of attack development.

Protects against a broad range of threats, including Denial of Service (DoS) and buffer over-flow attacks, that target the messaging infrastructure itself.

The Anti-Spam & Email Security Software Blade utilizes SmartDefense™ Email IPS to effectively stop attacks targeting the messaging infrastructure. Such attacks aim to gain access to the protected network, bring down a piece of the messaging infrastructure, or utilize the messaging infrastructure as a resource for launching new attacks. The Anti-Spam & Email Security Software Blade defends against a broad range of specific attacks such as DoS and buffer overflows.

The Anti-Spam & Email Security Software Blade is integrated into the Software Blade Architecture. It can be easily and rapidly activated on existing Check Point Security Gateways and open server platforms, saving time and reducing costs by leveraging existing security infrastructure.

Full integration into the modular Software Blade Architecture allows for rapid and easy activation on any Check Point security gateway.