All the big virus scares of recent times (think Melissa and the Love Bug) have used e-mail protocols to propagate themselves, often taking advantage of the address-book features of e-mail clients to identify their victims. E-mail Virus Protection Handbook explores how you, as an administrator of an e-mail server (and perhaps some of the network resources surrounding it), can protect your users from productivity loss that results from e-mail virus infection. This book is best suited to administrators of smallish networks who have responsibility for (and direct control of) firewalls and network-wide antivirus strategies, as well as e-mail readers on the client side.

The authors of this volume--there are several--begin by explaining how and why e-mail viruses work (they point the finger mainly at software designed for slick presentation of mail rather than for security, as well as at uninformed end users). They then begin to explain what various countermeasures (including antivirus software and firewalls) can do, and offer specific configuration advice. They also explore means of configuring popular e-mail servers and clients for maximum resistance to viruses. Overall, this book is carefully researched and should provide system administrators with the information they need--both practical and background--to protect their systems from some of the most insidious threats around. --David Wall

Topics covered: Malicious code that's spread through e-mail clients, servers and protocols, and how to defend against it. Specifically, the book deal with antivirus software (both network-wide and for single clients) and configuration policies for Outlook 2000, Outlook Express 5.0, Eudora 4.3 on the client side. Server coverage includes Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Red Hat Linux 6, Exchange Server 5.5, and Sendmail. Personal firewalls (like BlackICE Defender 2.1) get attention, too.