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GCN Lab Review | Symantec Mail Security 8240

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|GCN Lab Reviewer's Choice|

Pros: Perfect virus protection
Cons: A few quirks in the setup process
Price: $4,875 (100 users)
Spam protection: A
Virus protection: A+
Ease of setup: A-
Ease of maintenance: A
Value: A

Considering Symantec has been in the antivirus business for many years, it was no surprise the Mail Security 8240 did well at keeping viruses out of our lab network. In fact, the Symantec device was the only one to block each and every virus we sent its way.

The setup process was fairly easy. The biggest annoyance was that there seemed to be a lot of “please wait” prompts that came up while commands were written to the appliance.

At one point we had to change the IP address and the Web interface told us to “please wait.” But because the IP address we were logged into was changing, we would have been waiting forever had we not known better.

A few setup quirks aside, once we got into the Web-based management interface, things went extremely smoothly and we were pleased with how easy it was to manage the device.

Once we dropped the 8240 into our simulated network, it performed very well. In addition to blocking all virus-laden messages, it halted 989 spam e-mails out of 1,000. That spam protection mark was among the highest in our review, which makes the fact that the appliance registered no false positive especially impressive. Symantec appears to have finely tuned engines right out of the box.

With a government price of $4,875 (for 100 user licenses), the 8240 is a great choice for ironclad virus protection and effective spam filtering.

Symantec Corp., Cupertino, Calif., (800) 745-6054, http://www.symantec.com