Clearswift CS Mailsweeper

Mimesweeper was the first email scanning tool to be released in 1995, since when it has been joined by several others sold under the Clearswift label. CS Mimesweeper for Web has replaced the Websweeper product. However, it wasnåt released in time to be included here, so we tested CS Mailsweeper for this group test.

As well as the Mailsweeper for SMTP product, versions are available for Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino Ñ all Windows 2000 apps based on the same scanning technology. This intercepts incoming and outgoing messages and breaks them into their component parts, enabling deep scanning by third-party anti-virus tools, allowing potentially harmful active components to be stripped out.

Links to Ldap directories allow policy rules to be applied on a per-user basis and you can scan for content as well as filter messages based on domain blacklists. You can also examine and filter image content rather than simply block attachments, although only by adding the CS Imagemanager package. You need CS Secretsweeper to deal with encrypted messages.

Mailsweeper can be used both as a standalone solution or distributed across multiple servers for greater performance. Itås not particularly easy to install, a situation not helped by the supporting documentation, which is comprehensive but not easy to follow.

A lot of effort has gone into making Mailsweeper easy to manage. We liked the option of downloading sample policies to get started plus the extensive use of wizards when creating policies from scratch. MMC snap-ins provide the management interface, with reasonable alerting and reporting tools included as standard. Unfortunately the product is starting to show its age, with easier-to-use tools now available that are just as effective in what they do.

Contact: Clearswift 0118 903 8903
www.clearswift.com