Book excerpt: Email Security with Cisco IronPort thoroughly illuminates the security and performance challenges associated with today’s messaging environments and shows you how to systematically anticipate and respond to them using Cisco’s IronPort Email Security Appliance (ESA). Going far beyond any IronPort user guide, leading Cisco expert Chris Porter shows you how to use IronPort to construct a robust, secure, high-performance email architecture that can resist future attacks. Email Security with Cisco IronPortpresents specific, proven architecture recommendations for deploying IronPort ESAs in diverse environments to optimize reliability and automatically handle failure. The author offers specific recipes for solving a wide range of messaging security problems, and he demonstrates how to use both basic and advanced features-–including several hidden and undocumented commands. The author addresses issues ranging from directory integration to performance monitoring and optimization, and he offers powerful insights into often-ignored email security issues, such as preventing “bounce blowback.” Throughout, he illustrates his solutions with detailed examples demonstrating how to control ESA configuration through each available interface. Chris Porter,Technical Solutions Architect at Cisco, focuses on the technical aspects of Cisco IronPort customer engagements. He has more than 12 years of experience in applications, computing, and security in finance, government, Fortune® 1000, entertainment, and higher education markets. ·Understand how the Cisco IronPort ESA addresses the key challenges of email security ·Select the best network deployment model for your environment, and walk through successful installation and configuration ·Configure and optimize Cisco IronPort ESA’s powerful security, message, and content filtering ·Understand the email pipeline so you can take full advantage of it–and troubleshoot problems if they occur ·Efficiently control Cisco IronPort ESA through its Web User Interface (WUI) and command-line interface (CLI) ·Implement reporting, monitoring, logging, and file management ·Integrate Cisco IronPort ESA and your mail policies with LDAP directories such as Microsoft Active Directory ·Automate and simplify email security administration ·Deploy multiple Cisco IronPort ESAs and advanced network configurations ·Prepare for emerging shifts in enterprise email usage and new security challenges This security book is part of the Cisco Press® Networking Technology Series. Security titles from Cisco Press help networking professionals secure critical data and resources, prevent and mitigate network attacks, and build end-to-end self-defending networks.