Review: Gordano Vanguard email security

Protect all your email servers with this vendor-neutral security tool

Gordano has over the years built a host of security features into the Gordano Messaging Suite (GMS), its messaging and collaboration solution.

Now you can buy that functionality separately in the form of Vanguard, a self-contained tool that leverages Gordano’s anti-virus, anti-spam and content filtering technologies to protect email servers.

As well as GMS, Vanguard can be used to protect Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and virtually any other SMTP mail server.

It sits at the network boundary filtering all incoming and outgoing email messages and applying two levels of anti-virus protection. A mix of traditional signature-based scanning and zero-hour protection traps new variants as quickly as possible. The same technologies can be used to protect users surfing the web or downloading from FTP sites, courtesy of a built-in proxy server.

Anti-spam filtering is provided using Recurrent Pattern Detection (RPD), based on technology licensed from Commtouch. This delivers real-time protection against a wide range of threats, including image-based and foreign language spam, plus phishing attacks. Bayesian filters, whitelists and blacklists can be configured and attachments blocked. Gordano has worked closely with the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to detect unsuitable images and websites containing such images.

Updates are delivered automatically and, according to Gordano, its particular mix of technologies gives maximum protection with very low false positive rates. Inevitably, however, some messages will still be trapped unnecessarily, so a key feature of Vanguard is the ability to email users a daily summary showing exactly what has been redirected to their quarantine folders. From this they can log directly onto the Vanguard server from a browser and manage their quarantined messages and settings directly.

In a small company Vanguard can be installed on the email server, with implementations for Windows, Linux, AIX and Solaris platforms. However, there are performance advantages to be gained by installing on a separate server, especially in larger organisations where several mail servers need to be protected.

Either way the initial setup is straightforward with the core software installed as a set of background services, configured and managed via a web browser. Local users can be assigned to groups with authentication via a built-in database, Active Directory or another LDAP directory service. Multiple domains can be supported with facilities to add disclaimers and other header/footer information on a per domain basis. Alerting tools and management reports are built in with facilities to delegate management.

The same management interface used for GMS is employed by Vanguard, which we found quite easy to navigate. However, a fair amount of technical knowledge is assumed and the supporting documentation is shared with the GMS package with no dedicated manuals just for Vanguard ­ not a major issue, but it can cause confusion.

With performance largely down to the host platform we would have liked more guidance when it came to server sizing. Smaller organisations are likely to need specialist help with deployment and it’s worth bearing in mind that simpler appliance-based solutions are available.

Such concerns apart, Vanguard appears to deliver on its promises with a good mix of content filtering technologies that can be applied to protect email servers irrespective of vendor.