E-mail Virus Protection Handbook : Protect your E-mail from Viruses, Tojan Horses, and Mobile Code Attacks

All of the big viruses of recent times (think "Melissa" and the "Love Bug") have used e-mail protocols to propagate themselves--often taking advantage of the address-book features of e-mail clients to identify their victims. The E-mail Virus Protection Handbook explores how you, as an administrator of an e-mail server (and perhaps some of the network resources that surround it), can protect your users from productivity loss that results from e-mail virus infection. This book is best suited to administrators of smallish networks who have responsibility for (and direct control over) firewalls and network-wide antivirus strategies, as well as e-mail readers on the client side.

The authors of this volume (and there are several) begin by explaining how and why e-mail viruses work--they point the finger mainly at software that's designed for slick presentation of mail instead of for security, as well as at uninformed end users. Then, they begin to explain what various countermeasures, including antivirus software and firewalls, can do, and offer specific configuration advice. They also explore means of configuring popular e-mail servers and clients for maximum resistance to viruses. Overall, this book is carefully researched and should provide system administrators with the information--both practical and background--that they need to protect their systems from some of the more insidious threats around. --David Wall

Topics covered: Malicious code that's spread through e-mail clients, servers, and protocols, and how to defend against it. Specifically, the book deals with antivirus software--both network-wide and for single clients--and configuration policies for Outlook 2000, Outlook Express 5.0, and Eudora 4.3 on the client side. Server coverage includes Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Red Hat Linux 6.0, Exchange Server 5.5, and Sendmail. Personal firewalls, like BlackICE Defender 2.1, get attention, too.