05 Jun

Unless you've somehow managed to avoid both the news headlines and the barrage of content from IT security vendors that followed, you'll no doubt be aware that a couple of weeks ago, there was a particularly severe ransomware attack that affected over 100,000 businesses around the globe, including the NHS. The latest evidence indicates that the recent 'WannaCry' attack originated via an exploit tool created by the NSA, however it's more common they originate via 'phishing' emails, the technique of tricking recipients into clicking a malicious link or opening an attachment, often appearing to be from a colleague or relative. So with this in mind, now seems like a great time to give you a refresher on the features at your disposal as an MDaemon administrator to help prevent the type of phishing attack that can lead to a ransomware infection, along with some additional tips on best practice. (Almost all of the security tools for MDaemon are in the SecurityPlus add-on so for the purpose of this post, I'll be assuming you've got that installed.)
11:33 / MDaemon / News / Tech tips
03 Jan

blog-md-excel-700x353 A popular feature of MDaemon is its ability to let administrators quickly pinpoint message activity and session information using detailed logs. Sometimes, however, what's required is more an overview of server usage such as how load is being shared across users or mailboxes for example. In this post I take a look at how you can use Microsoft Excel to query data you may not even be aware is available in MDaemon!
15:06 / MDaemon / News / Tech tips
18 Aug

If you read my post on 'spear phishing'  you'll be aware that the hijacking of email accounts is on the rise. These attacks generally revolve around the attacker already knowing the login details for the account somehow. When I speak to customers they often wonder how the attacker knew their seemingly complex password. Did they simply guess it? The simple answer is no, in my opinion, that's very unlikely. It's much more likely that the email address and password were used on another site/ service which has led to them being compromised or 'pwned'.
11:44 / MDaemon / Tech tips
05 Jul

better-mailstore-email-alertsLast year I wrote this article that described how you could use a combination of MailStore email archiver's auditing features, the Windows task manager and a PowerShell script to send you email alerts in the event an archiving job failed. This worked well but it was a little on the keen side, occasionally being triggered by a job failing that would actually just go on to run fine again shortly afterwards.
15:12 / MailStore / News / Tech tips
09 Mar

archiving-mdaemon-email1Our standard recommendation for anyone who wants a true email archiving solution is MailStore Server, however, MDaemon does have some basic archiving capabilities worth being aware of too. Version 16 of MDaemon introduces changes to the way these native capabilities work, so in this post, I'm going to take a moment to explain the changes and the options now available to you.
14:59 / MailStore / MDaemon / News / Tech tips
17 Feb

system-protectionI'm frequently asked by customers to explain exactly what's happening when BackupAssist performs a 'System Protection' job, so I figured a blog post on it was well overdue! Now bear with me as it may seem a little heavy going if you're new to the subject, but this stuff really is genuinely useful to get your head around, regardless of the backup software you use.
14:23 / BackupAssist / News / Tech tips
22 Dec

Set up an out of office responder in MDaemon

Before you hang up your mouse for the Christmas break, it's a good idea to make sure that if anyone contacts you via email, they know whether you're available and if not, when you'll be back. If you use MDaemon Messaging Server, rather than all staff replicating the same out of office autoresponder, you can use a simple temporary account and content filter rule to create a global version for all staff.

09:00 / MDaemon / Tech tips
13 Oct

BackupAssist v9.0Weak passwords are the most common method by which email accounts and servers can become compromised by spammers.  The great news is that Exchange alternative MDaemon Messaging Server, now offers an easy way to identify when somebody's using one that isn't secure via a simple but effective new reporting feature. Whether you then decide to name and shame, or just to give them a friendly nudge is entirely up to your discretion! :).
15:00 / MDaemon / News / Tech tips
01 Jul

These days we all expect our email to work flawlessly when we're outside of the office, regardless of how we're connected. Occasionally though, a change of connection is all it takes to cause issues. In this post I take a quick look at why, if you connect to your own mail server using an SMTP connection (not applicable to ActiveSync users) from your mobile device, laptop or even desktop machine, you might experience problems with sending email. Oh, and what you can do about it of course!
16:48 / MDaemon / News / Tech tips