Features

Learn about the features and benefits of Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint, which helps businesses protect their Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 from viruses, unwanted files, and inappropriate content.

Forefront Security for SharePoint with SP2 is now available, providing support for Windows Server 2008. This release also ships with installable keyword lists that can be used to block the upload or download of documents containing profanity and discriminatory content in eleven supported languages.

Forefront Security for SharePoint provides:

Comprehensive Protection
Optimized Performance
Simplified Management

Comprehensive Protection
Multiple anti-virus engines for comprehensive protection	Forefront Security for SharePoint includes industry-leading anti-virus engines from global security firms such as Kaspersky Labs, CA, and Sophos. Forefront Security for SharePoint maximizes threat protection by enabling IT to run up to five scan engines at once from industry-leading antivirus labs around the world. All documents are scanned as they are uploaded to, and retrieved from, SharePoint libraries. This provides rapid response to new threats, regardless of where the threat originates. Forefront Security for SharePoint automatically downloads the latest signatures and selects the optimal combination of engines to use, ensuring a high level of protection and reducing the window of exposure to any given threat. Diversity of anti-virus engines across messaging servers and client devices protects against a single point of failure in the IT environment.
Protection against inappropriate content	Forefront for SharePoint scans for administrator-defined keywords within most Microsoft Office documents, including Open XML documents and IRM-protected documents, helping to enforce compliance with corporate policy for language usage and confidentiality. With the SP2 release, Forefront Security for SharePoint also includes installable keyword lists that can be used to block the upload or download of documents containing profanity and discriminatory content in eleven supported languages. On-the-fly encryption and decryption allows IRM-protected documents to be checked for malware and unwanted text while retaining security settings applied by information rights management (IRM). Forefront Security for SharePoint can also unpack and selectively repack compressed files, such as .zip, after removing an infected or unwanted item.
Document filtering	Forefront for SharePoint has configurable file filtering rules that help customers eliminate file types known for carrying viruses (for example, .exe) or opening organizations to legal exposure (for example, .mp3).
Protection against new and hidden threats	Forefront Security for SharePoint includes heuristics technologies that detect malicious code based on behavioral characteristics. It also has configurable file filtering rules that help customers eliminate file types that are known for carrying viruses (for example, .exe), and can identify threatening documents even if the file extension has been changed.
Multi-vendor response to new threats	The critical hours between the discovery of a new threat in the wild and the delivery of a signature to catch it leave a business highly vulnerable to attack. Dependence upon a single-engine solution only increases this risk. One security vendor may be first to deliver a signature for one threat, but last to deliver the signature for the next one, giving single-engine solutions fluctuating levels of effectiveness. With the multiple-engine solution of Forefront Security for SharePoint, multiple vendors are responding to a new virus at once, increasing the odds for a quick response, and lowering a business' overall risk of exposure to each new threat, regardless of its origin around the world. Automatic downloads help ensure that the first valid solution to the attack gets loaded to the engine set of Forefront Security for SharePoint.

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Optimized Performance
Performance optimization and control	With features like in-memory scanning, multi-threaded scanning, performance control settings, and the ability to track a document’s scan status to avoid redundant scanning, businesses can gain the benefits of multiple-engine scanning while making smart use of available processing time and server capability. Forefront Security for SharePoint scans documents during upload and download, using in-memory scanning, significantly improving performance over more traditional techniques (such as spooling to disk). Its multi-threaded scanning increases mail throughput by enabling the software to analyze multiple documents simultaneously. With performance settings, IT administrators can balance their wanted level of security against the required level of server performance to meet the changing needs of their environment.
Support for 32- and 64-bit servers	Gain deployment flexibility by using Forefront Security for SharePoint in mixed 32-bit and 64-bit server environments, and take advantage of the performance gains of 64-bit systems.
SharePoint VSAPI integration	Microsoft Virus Scanning API 1.4 performs real-time scanning to help ensure that documents are safe before they are saved to, or retrieved from, the SQL document library. Forefront Security for SharePoint also offers manual and scheduled scanning options.
Out-of-Policy file blocking	Forefront for SharePoint helps prevent unwanted or out-of-policy file types from consuming valuable disk space.
Performance control settings	Leverage how many engines are used for a given scan job for greater flexibility and control over security and server performance. Choose from performance control settings like “Maximum Certainty,” which scans with all available engines, and “Neutral,” which scans with approximately 50 percent of available engines.

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Simplified Management
Forefront server security administration	The built-in management console enables administrators to fully configure Forefront Security for SharePoint, locally or remotely.
Centralized Web-based control	Forefront Security for SharePoint works with the Microsoft Forefront Server Security Management Console, which provides central configuration, deployment, and updating for all Forefront server security products in enterprise environments that have multiple Exchange or SharePoint servers. This enables IT administrators to easily manage servers remotely, generate comprehensive reports, and receive outbreak alerts from across the infrastructure.
One-stop, automated updates	Through its Rapid Update Process, Microsoft monitors all scan-engine vendor Web sites for updates and downloads, and validates new engine versions and signatures as they become available, and then posts them online for Forefront Security for SharePoint to automatically download and install. No IT involvement is needed to keep all the engines and signatures up-to-date. For environments that have multiple SharePoint servers, Forefront Server Security Management Console automatically distributes the signature and engine updates to all Forefront Security for SharePoint deployments within the environment.
Migration protection	Customers who purchase Forefront Security for SharePoint to help protect Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 will also be licensed to use Antigen for SharePoint to help protect their Microsoft SharePoint Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 collaboration environments.
Localization	Forefront Security for SharePoint is now localized into 11 languages, making it easier for administrators to manage their messaging server security in the language of their region. Manage collaboration server security in the regional language of choice by obtaining Forefront Security for SharePoint in one of these 11 languages: English, German, French, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Korean, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Portuguese (Brazil), and Russian.
Integrated monitoring	A management pack for Microsoft Operations Manager1 enables the IT administrator to monitor the health of Forefront Security for SharePoint sever as part of corporate operational management practices.

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Features

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