[Techtalk] stopping outgoing virus mail

[Jacinta Richardson]

On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Carla Schroder wrote:

> OK, I wasn't clear- this is in addition to using antivirus software, I can't 
> imagine any admin being foolish enough to think they can skate by without it! 
> What I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to identify virus-sent 
> emails. Let's say it's a brand-new virus and the AV software misses it, 
> having a nice egress filter to catch the little buggers would be a lovely 
> thing.

I'm coming in half way through but if you're talking about a home network
or one in which your users are primarily geeks you could insist that all
outgoing mail has a pgp signature attached.  Any non-signed email is
bounced back to the sender reminding them to pgp-sign their mail.

Viruses can't (or at least shouldn't be able to!) forge the pgp signature,
checking the validity of the signature is easy and it virtually guarantees
that every out-going mail is sent by a human. 


	Jacinta

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