Other reasons to archive emails

Most people think that using an archiving solution will only help you during the legation process. Its sole function is to keep a record of everything, and then you use it to protect yourself when require. But, an archiving solution can offer other benefits, depending on which solution you go with. One such solution is the ICR 1000, from freedom9. This device offers many extra features.

1. Email restoration – A standard thing for any tech is to re-install a users pc, after it has crashed or been rebuilt from scratch. Even if it was restored from a backup, not all the emails were backed up and can be restored. With the ICR you can export all the users’ emails to a .pst file, and simply just import them. Or if you only want to restore specific files, you can just forward them to the new users account.

2. Telnet backup – I tend to telnet into switches, router, firewall’s throughout my working day. You tend to work very fast and run through a series of commands. At some point, you may not remember what command you used previously used to solve an issue with the firewall. The ICR will capture all test entered in a telnet session. It gives a screen shot of all the commands you have entered. This also helps by recording any output from commands, as most of the time, you can scroll up to read the text.

3. Content auditing – This feature gives you a heads up before you really need the archiver. When the litigation occurs, the emails in question will be from the previous year or even earlier. This feature lets you set up key words, which you can be notified about, and then keep an eye on that user. It can be setup to monitored both email and instant messaging programs, and send an email when a word is matched. So we can watch for bomb, gun, job, interview, profanity, account information, and other key words. This lets you prevent the fire, rather than the simply put out the fire.

4. Authentication – This feature is normally done by a firewall or other network device. Those devices are complicated, and require a fair bit of configuration from a tech perspective. Using the ICR, we can force users to authenticate to the internet, and to any IM programs that they are allow to use. It can be used to adjust the timeout feature, how often the account can log in, and even letting the user change their password. This information can be added manually, or it can be integrated from a RADIUS, pop3, or LDAP server.

5. Application blocking – Bridge mode only. Based on the same issues as the authentication. Blocking a service or a pc of software can be a difficult process depending on the firewall. May of these programs are smart and know, if they just keep changing their ports, they get around any content filtering. With the ICR, we can block most P2P programs, multimedia streaming applications, Online gaming streams. We can also block VPN tunneling software and other remote control software packages. Of course, we can make it so only the techs can use the remote software and no one else.

To me, these are all bonus features of the internet content record. Most people assume you install the device, and only use it when you need it. I hope I have show that you can use the device for other useful functions. That the ICR is not a one trick pony just limited to logging and recording emails.