How to block Hotmail Accounts, etc. on Netork?

[Woodcycl]

Due to the W32.Novarg.A@mm (Mydoom) virus, is there a way as a network administrator I can remove the ability for anyone to use their brownser to access Yahoo or Hotmail accounts ... or any other accounts using Pop3?

We are running Exch5.5 and Norton's Enterprise Ed., but I'm not sure if someone accesses email other than our own Exch email if Norton's will check it ... I highly doubt it.

If I can disable abilities for folks to access their other email accounts, it will be much safer.

Thanks,
Brian

[Picard]

Hotmail does not use pop3. Anyways, you have a firewall or router in there somewhere right? Block the urls for the web based email sites you wish to block. I, know that is daunting, hotmail has dozens of site addresses. I'd look for a list online. Somebody somewhere is bount to have one. There may be a specific port they use, but I don't know what it is.

[Midknyte]

Without a content filtering proxy, you would have to manually block IPs. This can be a pain. You could create hosts file to do this if you can't do it at your firewall/router.

This might be a good time to bring up content filtering to your company. It would cut down on Internet abuse at work. Iprism, Sonicwall, and Kerio are just a few companies with content filtering services. :cool:

[Woodcycl]

Picard - yes, I know Hotmail isn't a POP3 account. I meant browser based email and POP3 email accounts in general. I believe I'd have to block IPs and/or site addresses for Hotmail ... ports wouldn't do it from my reading.

Midknyte - I believe you have the right idea and I've "mentioned" this idea in the past. But, we are non-profit and until something is broken .... don't fix it! Same ol' same ol' when it comes to non-profits.

For now, I'll just send out global email asking people to refrain from accessing any email outside of our domain name email.

Brian

[Midknyte]

Doh. I think you mentioned that before. You could justify the costs in user productivity. You could say that it would reduce IT manangement overhead, but you could be talking yourself out of a job. Hehe. :p

Content filtering would be an annually recurring cost, so they would need to budget for it.

Sonicwall has different deals for different markets. I'm not sure if they discount for non-profits or not, though.

http://www.sonicwall.com/industries/index.html

Iprism is pretty stout, but kinda expensive.
http://www.iprism.net/