A Few Tips for Securing Your Email Server

All businesses rely on email, but we will admit that it’s not the sexiest technology solution out there. It’s more of a necessity rather than something you might get excited about implementing for your company. Still, this does not lessen its importance, so you should give it the same care you would any other aspect of your business’ IT infrastructure.

We thought we would share a couple of tips for how you might adjust your business’ email server settings to improve security.

Make Sure You Have SMTP Authentication

All email clients work using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, a process in which an email application sends messages to a server for relaying to its eventual destination. When we talk about authentication, we are essentially checking to see that the user who is sending mail is logged into the system with credentials. If your email server is configured correctly, only those who have accounts should be able to send emails through your server. If you do not have authentication enabled, you might find that your server has an open relay, an issue that can lead to considerable troubles if left unchecked.

Restrict Your Mail Relay Parameters

Speaking of open relays, it’s important to make sure that your email server is configured in such a way that others cannot abuse it. Basically, your email server should only be configured to route messages for specific IPs or domains. This is the setting that stops people from using your email server to send spam messages to others. By keeping these settings quite restrictive, you can minimize the odds of this becoming an issue for your company.

Protect Against DoS Attacks

In the case of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, your server might buckle under the traffic sent its way by hackers or other malicious entities. You can mitigate the risks of this somewhat by placing a limit on how many connections the email server can accommodate at any given time. Controlling these settings and adjusting over time will help you lessen the impact of these types of attacks, leading to less downtime overall.

If all of this email geek speak is too much for you, don’t worry—you’re not alone. There are countless businesses out there that rely on others to set up and manage their email servers and email resources. There is no shame in admitting this, so if you are not confident in your ability to manage or maintain your email solution, it is better to rely on a professional who does speak this language.

SCW can be your go-to email management resource throughout this entire process. Not only can we help you set up and maintain your email server, but we can also make any adjustments to your current solution as needed. Furthermore, if you are not comfortable hosting your own email server, we can host it for you! It’s one less thing on your plate so you can focus on running your business.

To learn more, reach out to us at (509) 534-1530.