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mlopresti

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Exchange Server and Blocked senders list

We constantly receive spam email from the same senders, so my question is:
 
In a small exchange server environment, if a person adds a sender to the blocked senders list, does it automatically synchronize to the exchange server and is applied to everyone's account or is there something else that needs to be done?
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iammorrison
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No, Outlook will create a local rule applied only to that Outlook instance, and it does not push those rules to the organization. Ideally, you block senders/domains at the edge (with some sort of anti-spam solution). What kind of Exchange environment are you running?
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James H
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Avatar of Manpreet SIngh Khatra
Whats done in Outlook is just every client specific so if you have some common IP or Email you can simply use Sender\Recipient filtering to block such spams if its too much you can even think of 3rd party firewall but Exchange can surely help you a lot.

What is the Version of Exchange you have here ?

- Rancy
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mlopresti

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We are using Exchange 2003 on an SBS 2003 R2 Server.

But if that is the case, what anti-spam software do you recommend?
Depends on several factors, budget and if you want hardware or software based SPAM filter.
Example:

Hardware: Barracuda Virus and Anti-Spam
https://www.barracuda.com/products/spamandvirusfirewall

Software: ORF Fusion
http://vamsoft.com/
Best practice is to either us an appliance (as mentioned above) or a "cloud" service that relays messages.

Again as mentioned, it really comes down to budget. The most "cost effective" method usually involves a client (like ORF or GFI) that gets installed on the server. The major downfall to this method is that, not only has that spam traffic already made its way into your network, but now your SBS must use resources to enforce the policies used by the Spam filter, and as spam traffic increases, your SBS server is then taxed even harder. So best practice is to either stop it at the edge (appliance/hardware) or have it mitigated through a third party ("cloud") so spam traffic never even hits the network period.