adding blacklists to Exchange 2007

IMF in Exchange 2007 is more configurable than in Exchange 2003, but I find it more cumbersome than GFI Mail Essentials, which I love.

For this particular Exchange 2007 server (via SBS 2008), I had users complaining about Microsoft and Facebook spam. Since the IMF updates were not adjusting the content filtering to adjust for these messages, I decided to add black lists. I have hated black lists for years, as I occasionally find myself on them and it's a bitch getting off of them - but conceptually, if the blacklist is accurate with no false positives, it should be a very good tools.

OF NOTE - you should limit your number of blacklists to 3. See this post for more information

To configure it, I opened up Exchange Management Console -> Organization Configuration -> Hub Transport and went to the anti-spam tab. I went into IP block list providers and added these blacklists:

zen.spamhaus.org
list.dsbl.org
combined.njabl.org
bhnc.njabl.org
dnsbl.ahbl.org


Here are some others I could have added:

dnsbl.sorbs.net
bl.spamcop.net
dnsbl-1.uceprotect.net

Microsoft finally offers free anti-virus

Microsoft's free anti-virus option is now out of beta and publicly available. You can get it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/default.aspx

I'm still evaluating it on Windows 7, but so far it seems ok. It is a free option for any geniune Windows that runs Win XP or later.

registering a blackberry on the network

Had a Verizon Blackberry that needed to be registered on the network. Went to options -> advanced options and the host routing table. Click the menu/blackberry button and hit register.