Managed Security Services FAQs

General

How many times a day does Network Box update its systems?

In the year 2000, Network Box was pushing out an average of 8 updates per day. In 2010, Network Box Security Response pushed out 11,719 updates, totaling 3,083,018 signatures. That is approximately one new signature every 10.2 seconds. The average Network Box blocked spam or malware once every 63 seconds.

These updates occur around the clock, twenty-four hours a day, all year round. The Internet never sleeps, neither does Network Box.

Do I need to change my network or ISP if I install Network Box?

No, you don't. Network Box supports Proxy ARP. This is a technique where the Network Box can use the same IP address on two network ports. This makes the Network Box 'invisible' to the network and eliminates the need for changes to your existing network. You do not need to change your ISP. The Network Box can be configured to work with your existing ISP.

What is PUSH technology and how does it differ from most anti-virus vendors' systems?

Network Box’s multi-award winning PUSH update technology ensures that every Network Box system in the world is updated in real-time, as opposed to once a day, or even once an hour, as with most traditional security systems. Whenever a new anti-malware signature, security patch, or software update becomes available, it is automatically pushed out to every connected Network Box system in the world, in an average of less than 45 seconds. This technology ensures the most up to date protection is running on every Network Box system, at all times.

Most anti-virus systems rely on the client system regularly connecting to a central server and pulling down signatures. This system has the vulnerability that any failure in the client software to connect to the central server will result in no updates been downloaded. Additionally, these types of systems are often set up to check for updates every 24 hours at best. This means that your system can be vulnerable for a significant amount of time.

Nowadays viruses can take only an hour or so to spread world wide. The Network box PUSH technology works by the local network operation centre (NOC) actively pushing the update onto the client's Network Box. 

I already have anti-virus gateway installed. Do I still need Network Box to run as my anti-virus gateway?

No, you don't, but it is recommended that you use Network Box's anti-virus features.

Is there any difference in the level of protection offered by the different models?

No. Each model uses exactly the same software to protect your network. The only differences between the models are in the hardware: the cases, number of network ports, capacity of the ports and redundancy levels.

Can we arrange for a demo if we choose your solution?

Absolutely. We will give you remote access to one of our demo boxes and will be on the phone with you to show you the interface. We can also offer a 30-day free trial. In 5 years of operation in the USA, no one has ever returned our device once installed!

back to top

Anti-Spam

Do you offer a hosted spam solution, an appliance, or both?

The Network Box is an appliance that is usually deployed as a gateway protection within your network, though it can also be deployed internally, right in front of your email server. The anti-spam technology of the Network Box constantly reaches a 99.4% success rate, as you can see shown in real time at this link. Our real time Z-Scan technology, based on over 2 million spam traps deployed globally, allows Network Box anti-spam to achieve results unseen elsewhere in the industry.

Does your hosted/appliance spam filter do incoming filtering, or both incoming and outgoing filtering?

We can scan both incoming and outgoing, as preferred by the customer. The level of configurability is very granular. We can turn the scanner on or off based on source IPs, destination IPs, sender, recipient, and many other parameters.

Does your solution offer the easy ability to whitelist a particular sender?

Yes - you have multiple easy ways to do this:

1. There is a GUI that your administrators can access, from where they can easily create whitelists and blacklists based on email addresses on words contained in the body of the emails, or on values of the headers.

2. We also have a patented feature called mail Portal that can be deployed to some or all users. The users receive an email listing all the malware and spam that was blocked for them since the previous email (usually every 24 hours but can be configured as the customer requires). From this email they have the ability to release an email that was blocked, an dalso to whitelist the sender. They also have the ability to access a GUI from where they can fully manage their own emails.

3. The administrator GUI, the mail portal email, and the mail portal GUI all allow the creation of personal whitelists and personal blacklists as well.

Does Network Box support personal whitelists and personal blacklists?

Yes, the Network Box supports both personal whitelists and blacklists; these are settings that affect one recipient only and do not affect anyone else. When a sender is in a personal whitelist for a recipient, the emails from that sender are not scanned for spam only if the recipient is the one in the personal list. They are still scanned for spam if the recipient is anyone else in the company.

Does your solution offer the ability to do greylisting?

Ours is more than just greylisting. We have adopted a feature that we call DHA protection, which does greylisting by sending IP. Download our whitepaper for an in-depth look at the process. What happens is the following: The Network Box intercepts the SMTP connection and receives the envelope. It then asks your server to confirm that the recipients do exist. If they do not, the email is rejected (without revealing the list of non-existing addresses to avoid giving away information to the spammers), and the sending IP address is blacklisted in the firewall for 5 minutes (configurable). This means that for 5 minutes the spammer cannot even make an SMTP connection to you. This reduces bandwidth and CPU usage, because the emails are not scanned and rejected – they are simply not even received. We have seen customers going from 1 million emails scanned in a week, to less than 100 thousand, by means of this feature.