Go to Praetor Main

Launch of Praetor 1.5 Gives Corporate e-Mail Administrators New Ways To Filter and Manage e-Mail

New Version Offers Support for Non-MS Exchange Servers, Enhanced Features for Virus and Spam Detection, Message Management, Traffic Statistics, and More

PRESS CONTACT:

Lih-Tah Wong

Computer Mail Services, Inc., Inc.

248.352.6700 x220

lwong@cmsconnect.com

SOUTHFIELD, MI—July 6, 2000—Computer Mail Services, Inc., a leading e-mail security and management software provider, today announced the release of Praetor 1.5, the latest version of its advanced rule-based Microsoft Exchange plug-in designed to proactively filter viruses and unwanted commercial e-mail (spam). Praetor 1.5 includes a number of new features to manage and filter e-mail, including—for the first time—support for non-Exchange e-mail servers. 

Other improvements to Praetor include a new message redirect feature, remote management of quarantined messages, message traffic statistics, plus a new capability for Praetor to be loaded onto a Windows NT workstation to protect any Internet mail server.

Praetor essentially serves as a comprehensive messaging firewall.  The software sits in front of any Internet e-mail server such as that found with Exchange and Lotus Domino server, providing highly effective filtering by validating all incoming and outgoing e-mail from/to the Internet at both the SMTP transport protocol and message levels.

“Praetor has quickly proven itself to be the preferred line of defense for companies concerned about Internet-borne viruses, spam, and other e-mail related security issues,” said Lih-Tah Wong, Director of Sales and Marketing for Computer Mail Services, Inc.  “Using Praetor’s attachment filtering capabilities, our customers were able to avoid the recent infections caused by ILOVEYOU and other viruses. 

“Now, with the introduction of Praetor 1.5, administrators have even more powerful ways to combat and manage unwanted e-mail before it gets to its intended destination.  This is a solution today’s commercial enterprises can’t afford to be without.”

Powerful Management Features

One of the leading improvements in Praetor 1.5 is a new message management capability to

redirect e-mail to a different address.  Administrators can now choose to redirect, accept, quarantine, or reject incoming messages that are “caught” by Praetor’s rule-based filtering technology.  List serve e-mail, for example, can be redirected to a specific public folder, or messages meeting specific spam criteria can be sent to a different public folder for subsequent analysis.

Praetor 1.5 also offers a new log viewer with remote capabilities that allows authorized users to examine quarantined messages from any workstation on the company’s LAN.  This enables multiple administrators to quickly make decisions regarding e-mail entering the system.  To expand Praetor’s usefulness, installations that do not use Microsoft Exchange can now install Praetor on any Windows NT workstation to protect their sites.

Other new features include a new message traffic statistics tool that analyzes sources and destinations of heavy e-mail activity, and a global rules facility that allows for universal commands—for example, to attach a disclaimer to all outgoing e-mail, or for auto-archiving of outbound or inbound e-mail.

Multi-Level E-mail Defense

Praetor’s basic virus-fighting technology involves applying lists of banned attachment filenames and suspicious attachment file extensions in order to identify and isolate viruses.  Also to combat the growing spam problem, Praetor contains lists of banned domain names and IP addresses and uses the dynamically updated Real-time Blackhole list on the Internet.  

While these lists provide some level of protection, they are insufficient to protect users against all types of dangerous or unwanted mail.  To address this, Praetor also includes proprietary technology based on the analysis and profiling of the tech­niques used by most spam perpetrators.  The result is a powerful, uniquely proactive solution, one that is not in need of constant input and updating by network administrators. 

Praetor begins at the message transport level (i.e., Internet standard RFC 821), saving network bandwidth by automati­cally validating the domain and/or IP address as an acceptable e‑mail source, and by also verifying To/From information prior to passing the e-mail on for filtering at the message header level.  When the inbound message is fully validated at the transport level, it is then received, after which analysis and validation at the message header level (i.e., Internet standard RFC 822) can begin.

Message header level tests include validations for the sender, recipient, the subject line, and even the message’s body text.  Via these testing sorties, once Praetor determines whether a message is unwanted, its judgement is absolute: it will not consume further system resources by sub­ject­ing the message to any subsequent testing.

Customization of message level filtering in Praetor is accomplished via a built-in Rules Wizard – similar to that found in Microsoft Outlook – which allows administrators great flexibility to create custom filtering rules to protect their particular site.  For example, administrators can easily establish rules for rejecting certain words or phrases that appear in either or both the message header or message body.  The use of Praetor’s Rules Wizard therefore helps to preserve valuable mail server resources because messages that do contain rejected words or phrases are never passed on to the mail server.  Simply put, Praetor’s Rules Wizard provides administrators the power to tailor server-side rules to filter particularly insidious messages.

Praetor is priced beginning at $250 for 10 users; as user count grows, costs become more economical due to its volume schedule for user-based pricing.  For more information about Praetor 1.5 or for a specific pricing quota­tion, contact CMS by phone at 800/883-2674 or 248/352-6700, via fax at 248/352-6700, by sending an electronic mail to info@cmsconnect.com, or by visiting the company’s Web site at www.cmsconnect.com.  Interested parties can get a price quote directly via e-mail by filling out the form at www.cmsconnect.com/Sales/prPrice.htm.

About Computer Mail Services, Inc.

Founded in 1982, Sterling Heights, Michigan-based Computer Mail Services, Inc. (CMS), is a privately-held company specializing in the development of messaging-related  products. CMS advanced technology solutions allow LAN e-mail systems to communicate with each other, with the Internet/SMTP, and with public messaging services. The company has many products that serve the connectivity needs of thousands of corporations worldwide.