Microsoft launches Antigen email server antidote

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 07 June 2006 17:28

Your IT - Home IT

Microsoft's range of server-based email security products has arrived to great fanfare from the software company, which is hailing it as a milestone for the company.  What's more to back up its claims as a credible entrant to the antivirus space, Microsoft is invoking some of the biggest names in the security industry outside of Symantec and McAfee as part of its multiple scan engine approach to security.
 

The range of Microsoft Antigen e-mail security products are based on enterprise anti-virus and anti-spam products acquired in the 2005 acquisition of Sybari Software. The new Microsoft Antigen security kit-bag, which will be released on July 1, includes Antigen for Exchange, Antigen for SMTP Gateways, Antigen Spam Manager and Antigen Enterprise Manager.

Microsoft is making a big deal of the use of multiple antivirus and antispam scan engines in its Antigen email security range. As well as its own Microsoft anti-virus engine, Antigen includes scan engines from Kapersky Lab, Sophos, Norman Data Defense Systems, CA, VirusBuster, AhnLab, Authentium and MailFilters. Customers would assume that Microsoft does not have a falling out with any of those companies like it has with one-time partner Symantec.

"Customers are faced with the challenge of providing the best possible protection for their e-mail users and maintaining the availability, uptime and performance of this mission-critical application," said Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Security, Access and Solutions Division at Microsoft. "Antigen's unique multiengine solution integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Exchange Server to provide customers with the benefits of layered protection, while minimizing cost, complexity and impact on performance."

"Server-based security for e-mail and collaborative applications is an important component of a multilayer security model and critical for protecting internal resources and providing threat containment," said Brian Burke, research analyst at IDC. "Antigen's proven strength in providing layered, anti-malware protection for e-mail servers addresses the most important customer concern around e-mail security: preserving uptime and availability of Exchange servers. By managing multiple engines, Antigen eliminates daily downtime during updates and provides customers with the opportunity to lower overall risk."