Exchange Protection

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The Exchange component for Windows Servers is specifically meant to protect your Exchange Server from threats without interfering in its function. It scans and filters emails for viruses at the Exchange server level to help stop potential attacks before they spread to the network.

Supported Exchange Servers

Microsoft Exchange Server versions 2010 and later are supported.

Prerequisites

For Exchange Server to be detected by Avast Business Antivirus and the plugin installed, it should be installed prior to installing Antivirus. If it is installed afterward, the Exchange component would need to be added manually.

Recommended Antivirus Components

When installing servers in a business environment, please follow our guidelines in Recommended Components for Servers and Workstations.

Configuring Exchange Protection Settings

To access Exchange Protection settings:

1. Go to the Policies page (at partner level for master policies or customer level for customer policies)
2. Select the desired policy from the left-hand pane
3. Under Endpoint Protection, expand the Firewall and Antivirus Add-ons section
4. Go to the Exchange Protection tab

The available configuration options are grouped as follows:

• Scanning
• Actions
• Packers
• Blocking

Scanning

Here, you can configure basic scanning parameters:

• Scan messages on-access: On-access scanner scans messages upon downloading, and remains active even if scanning messages in the background and proactive scanning options are off.
• Scan at transport level: Enables scanning of emails at the Exchange Hub Transport level.
• Scan RTF message bodies: Enables scanning of messages in rich text format.
• Try to clean infected objects: infected objects will be cleaned (e.g. remove malicious code only); if unsuccessful, they will be removed.

Note that Exchange Shield can only scan messages (on-access and in the background) on IS level.

Actions

The Actions settings allow you to configure how untestable and infected items are handled. In both cases, you can choose to allow full access to the item, overwrite the item with a warning, or delete the whole message.

You can also change the infected object's icon (if possible).

Packers

These settings allow you to define which archive (packer) formats Avast should try to extract during the scanning process (unpacked files can be better analyzed for malware). Original archives remain intact while processed by the Exchange component. You can choose to use either all packer formats or just the ones you select from the list. By default, all packers are used.

Blocking

Use these settings to block attachments with specified filename masks (characters and wildcards used to match folder and file names) that are found in messages coming through Exchange.

To configure attachment blocking, tick the Enable attachment blocking by name checkbox, then enter the desired filename mask and click the Add button. Repeat the process for each mask you want to add to the list.

The list will then get populated with your entries, which you can edit/delete anytime if needed.

At the bottom of the settings, you can also choose what the file's name is replaced with, and the content of the .txt file that will replace the blocked file.

FAQ