ExchangeDefender MFA Service Upgrades
ExchangeDefender has beefed up our MFA (multi-factor authentication aka 2FA / OTP) service with addition of new vendors and a wider reach.
Setting up MFA involves either installing an authenticator app or authorizing us to send you a text message. When you login to our service the system will expect you to provide the 6 digit code that will only* be known to your trusted device. Essentially, it keeps people who only know your username and password out of your account.
While we would prefer a more secure and reliable model in which our clients rely on MFA authenticator apps over the less secure SMS, we understand that is not a practical solution everywhere and absolutely every needs this second layer of authentication when accessing mission critical systems such as email and file sharing.
As you may remember, we had an issue with SMS MFA before Christmas and thanks to some heavy lifting by our team over the holidays the new SMS infrastructure is truly global, scalable – and will be delivered by multiple providers for better redundancy (eliminating the 10DLC compliance issues).
With the retirement of ExchangeDefender Essentials and all the compromises it required, you will be seeing a flurry of new security features in the ExchangeDefender Email Security service. First of many will be the access restrictions and the ability to restrict access to ExchangeDefender services based on location, time, etc. The attacks on email infrastructure are only getting more numerous and more sophisticated by the day and traditional (or cheap) security methods are no longer viable in 2023 and certainly not beyond. We look forward to continuing the best email security money can buy and we thank you all in advance for trusting us with your email.
Tis’ the season to save your MSP business money
We’ve set the email world on fire with ExchangeDefender Inbox, it is officially our most popular service. Hardly a surprise, given how it saves people $ on IT and email at a time when almost everyone is looking to make the most out of their budget. Or as one of our clients put it:
“This Inbox business is giving me a second life for Christmas – I’ve contacted everyone that said no to Office365 in the past year and I’m winning them!”
IT Tech Consulting
With that in mind, here are top 5 ways to illustrate how ExchangeDefender Inbox is a great way to control IT costs
Low cost
It’s a no brainer, $3 for Inbox with ExchangeDefender security included is a lot less than the average $20+ most M365 clients are spending.
No “up front” pre payment
Almost everyone quotes a low monthly price – but only if you pay up front, for 12 months, right now. ExchangeDefender Inbox is a month-to-month service and you can cancel it at any time.
No additional software licensing $$$
With big business email comes big business spending since big platforms come with poor security, no backups (read the TOS/AUP people!), and management UI + tools change all the time. With ExchangeDefender Inbox your only external cost is your annual domain registration.
Lower support & deployment costs
ExchangeDefender Inbox integrates with your existing infrastructure so there is no DNS work, no onboarding, no extensive training. You’ll never have to deal with permissions, distribution group memberships, Public Folders issues – not to mention that power users are largely going to more powerful cloud offerings for cloud and collaboration so why are you spending your IT budget in a slow 90s app?
No client software licensing costs
You won’t have to go to the app store for us nor do you need an entire office suite for retail, manufacturing, farm, students, or any role that comes with an iPad. Just open the default mail app that comes for free on your device, enter your credentials, and you’re done!
Fun fact
We’re not even half way through December and you’ve made ExchangeDefender Inbox our #1 service. We cannot thank you enough for that and we hope you’re excited about the roadmap we shared in our recent webinar.
Now is the time to talk to your clients about ExchangeDefender Inbox. If the IT budget is tight, we’re the solution you need to talk about right now. Don’t be surprised you’re not getting much interest for expensive email – everyone is pitching it and clients have already said no to it for a myriad of reasons. For those that are looking to get lean, to be more secure while spending far less, Inbox is the way.
Looking for marketing collateral? Great! (Download the brochure) for Inbox today!
Top 5 ways Inbox can save you from an email disaster
We developed ExchangeDefender Inbox to save the day: In our large M365 practice we’re responsible for a ton of users and when there is a problem we have to solve it. We built Inbox as a way to mitigate the biggest M365 problems and we’ve delivered an affordable and secure way to keep email working. Here are the top five ways people are relying on ExchangeDefender Inbox every day:
1. During Outages
If M365 goes down, your ability to send and receive mail goes with it. While this is not a frequent occurence (once of twice a year so far), when it does happen it’s extremely expensive. With ExchangeDefender Inbox you just have to open a web browser and continue where you left off.
2. Working around problems
While total outages are not frequent, email issues are nearly constant. Email bounces, weird errors, missing attachments, service suspensions, billing problems – not a day goes by without some sort of an issue. With Inbox you can rely on bypass to work around bounces and you have a separate platform that is not affected by configuration or administrative work.
3. BYOD + Mobile workforce
Most of the modern workforce doesn’t sit behind top of the line PC with a ton of ram – we’re seeing more work done on mobile devices, tablets, even Chromebooks. If you want a near turnkey email operation for users you don’t want to have access to your M365 side, ExchangeDefender Inbox is a far more affordable and efficient solution (plus it works out the box with no software to purchase)
4. Permanent mailbox
Let’s face it, most mailboxes are used to store alerts, notifications, and SPAM. ExchangeDefender Inbox enables you to move those mailboxes and not flood your shared mailboxes, logs, and tenant with non-actionable email. If your device or browser is constantly timing out and you have multiple mailboxes open, ExchangeDefender Inbox will make them all move smoother.
5. Configuration problems
We saved the best for last. Every day security vendors are publishing new ways to fight fraud, and email systems require extensive upkeep. If you’re innundated with issues related to email delivery – “I never got their email, they never got my email, why was this one delayed / deleted” – try using our response: “Did you check the ExchangeDefender Inbox?” Fact is, most email delivery issues are minor and tend to resolve themselves automatically but if you run a business you can hardly afford to wait: Inbox to the rescue.
Go for ExchangeDefender Inbox, visit www.exchangedefender.com/INBOX
ExchangeDefender Inbox is rapidly becoming our #1 service and we’d love to hear how you’re using it. If you have any feedback please send us an email at inbox@exchangedefender.com and we’ll put in a good word with Santa about getting you some ExchangeDefender swag.
ExchangeDefender: Out with the old, in with the new
Long time no see, Vlad here with some good news among all the doom and gloom. We’re keeping our pricing the same in ’23 and we’re introducing a new service that will help you save $ in the new year.
Introducing Inbox
ExchangeDefender Inbox is an affordable email cloud service that helps you reduce your Office / M365 or Google email bills. Same domain, same email address/domain, and it works with every modern OS and mobile device. Designed to be reliable, secure, and affordable!
In a software world where everyone is seemingly raising prices, our team has been given an IKEA-like task to build an email platform that can scale, that can meet compliance and security requirements, and most importantly – still fit a budget. What we’ve built is a hybrid email service that ties into Microsoft and Google email services and allows you to offload the appropriate mailboxes onto our more affordable network (~$3/month/user).
As companies grow their reliance on email grows and their bill grows faster than their employee base because suddenly all sorts of devices, services, contractors, and vendors start requiring email access. Costs, maintenance, and management quickly spiral out of control. Inbox fixes that.
What’s so special about it?
ExchangeDefender Inbox is a secure, standards-based email service that is simple to configure with all modern operating systems and mobile devices. What makes Inbox special is the infrastructure that synchronizes your organization at ExchangeDefender and your organization that is hosted at Microsoft or Google. The email domain is the same, the email address is the same, <b>but the cost can be over 90% less than what you’re paying now.
The beauty of Inbox is its integration and simplicity. No DNS changes, no software installations or upgrades or upkeep, no long-term contracts. The entire platform is fully automated, keeping the address books on both sides in sync and enabling the users and services to operate as if they were all on the same network.
If your clients are asking you for proposals to help them save money in ’23, Inbox is the right tool for that job. Since we’ve launched it the Inbox service has been very popular with legal, medical, construction and seasonal-work franchises. We’re finding that most organizations that introduce Inbox to their service end up moving all the non-essential & non-executive users to Inbox and only leave the executives and in-house talent that requires all the M365/G-Suite functionality on the enterprise platform.
Sales pitch is surprisingly simple: if you only need to send around email we’re the more appropriate tool for the job and we’ll save you a ton of money.
Out with the old: Essentials
While we aren’t raising prices in 2022/2023, we are discontinuing some products at the end of the year. Those products are ExchangeDefender Essentials, SMS Proxy, Wrkoo Password Vault.
ExchangeDefender Essentials is a service that’s simply past it’s prime and in our opinion no longer delivers the level of security that is needed to protect an average email user. Majority of the email-borne threats are more related to phishing and malware attacks than they are to UCE, SPAM, and known viruses.
On January 1st, 2023 ExchangeDefender Essentials and ExchangeDefender Pro accounts will be reported on your invoices under the new SKU, ExchangeDefender Email Security.
What’s the difference between LiveArchive and Inbox?
Recently we blogged about ExchangeDefender Project: Inbox and we got a good amount of interest in the beta and just as many questions. We wanted to address the biggest one: What’s the difference between LiveArchive and this Inbox.
The biggest difference is that Inbox is intended to be used as a primary user mailbox, while LiveArchive is meant as a failover for a user whose mailbox is elsewhere (Exchange, M365, Gmail, etc)
Vlad Mazek, CEO of ExchangeDefender
LiveArchive is a great service to rely on when something goes wrong – Inbox on the other hand is meant to be used all the time. LiveArchive is solely a web mail service – Inbox enables you to connect Outlook or mobile devices to it. LiveArchive is a separate web service to which users usually forget credentials or only login when things go down – Inbox is integrated in the admin app and is accessible one click away from the SPAM Quarantines that our users access daily.
They are both great solutions to different IT challenges: LiveArchive for when things go wrong, Inbox for everyday email use. Inbox has one other massive advantage to it that we’ll announce later this fall.
We expect to offer both with ExchangeDefender Pro to reduce support traffic (clients mail tracking requests caused by mail server issues: “It’s in the Inbox”) and because everything in IT can fail and it’s always prudent to have a failover/backup with LiveArchive.
Introducing ExchangeDefender Inbox
Cybersecurity tops the list of IT concerns and spending, with email still being the most popular service with users and hackers alike: over 90% of compromises start with an email. If that sounds familiar you’ve undoubtedly had to deal with new email authorization standards, user training, troubleshooting mail flow, trying to figure out why email to or from certain people is bouncing, reconciling it all with new IT trends, cyber-insurance requirements, marketing. In a nutshell, email security is still a challenge and users just want something that works.
We’ve reimagined what the email security should look like in 2022 and we cannot wait to show it off:
ExchangeDefender Inbox Webinar
Wed, Sep 28, Noon EST
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1111619875721771023
We hope you can join us for the webinar and see just how we’ve integrated all the ExchangeDefender security and productivity services to give users a single panel of glass to make email work for them even when they have issues with email. Can’t wait till next Wednesday? Shoot us a ticket at support.exchangedefender.com and ask us to enable it for you today!
ExchangeDefender Inbox combines over two decades of email security experience with the modern, mobile-first world of countless email issues. It enables our clients to get things done with email security and work through all the issues without involving IT. Users want a quick and reliable email platform that just works – work around SPAM filters, around SPF/DKIM policies, around bounces – all while leveraging email encryption to protect sensitive data. The service has been enormously popular with our enterprise clients and now we’re bringing it to all ExchangeDefender users – see you next Wednesday!
Data leaks in healthcare is the reason why millions are stolen, no security is the culprit
Most medical offices are prime targets for cybercriminals because they have little, or no security. In fact, in 2020 and 2021, 50 million people were affected by a data breach coming from their doctor’s office or other medical services. Orlando-based Cybersecurity company, 365 Defender wants to help the healthcare industry protect their patient’s data, and safeguard their businesses from online attacks.
“Phishing has become a major threat in every industry. The hardest hit has been healthcare, with about 88% of its workers having opened phishing emails on the job. To be fair, just because they opened it, doesn’t mean they fell prey to the attack. Still, having protection against today’s biggest threats are crucial for survival.” — 365 Defender CEO, Vlad Mazek
Service offerings range from email security for Outlook and Gmail, to email encryption software that can send secure messages to emails, urls, and text messages. The monthly fees are budget friendly with the cheapest service being just $5 per user, per month. There is no yearly contract commitment, giving medical offices complete flexibility to satisfy their ever-changing IT needs.
The need for data security is critical, and protecting patient privacy should be a top priority second only to healing them. To learn more about 365 Defender, and how to get started securing your company, please visit our website www.365defender.com. There is currently a 14-day free trial offer for any 365 Defender service.
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365 Defender is owned and powered by cybersecurity leader, ExchangeDefender. ExchangeDefender specializes in providing email and data security to enterprise since 1997. Headquartered in Orlando, Florida – the IT firm has just launched service plans for small business in hopes of keeping companies safe regardless of their size and budget.
Limited support for misconfigured services
ExchangeDefender provides technical support and assistance only for the domains that have been properly configured according to our deployment guides (see https://www.exchangedefender.com/docs).
To make sure your domain is properly configured please check https://check.exchangedefender.com
When the required DNS records and inbound/outbound mail isn’t configured correctly our internal troubleshooting tools fail and staff has no way to replicate or diagnose further issues — they are prohibited from guessing or offering informal suggestions as that can cause even bigger issues and cause a liability issue for everyone involved. You’ll get the same answer in the support portal, in the support web chat, and on the phone.
But Vlad!!! What if the client can’t/won’t change their DNS or deploy the service correctly?
I can respect that there is always a business case requirement for doing things the wrong way, and I’ve had plenty of arguments with clients that don’t know how ExchangeDefender relies on all these systems to deliver the best possible protection and functionality. I understand. It might even work!
Just please don’t ask us for help with it when it doesn’t work. Our staff is prohibited from guessing and making the problem even worse. It’s not a BOFH issue, it’s a legal liability issue.
-Vlad
Looking for beta testers: “Project Inbox”
We would like to invite our clients, partners, and enterprise users to a closed beta of Project: Inbox – an affordable email solution that can be used as a standalone solution or in hybrid mode with M365 and G Suite.
If you are interested, please email client.services@exchangedefender.com along with a domain name you will be using for the beta test.
Our CEO recently held a webinar explaining the strategy behind this new service and it has been evolving ever since based on market feedback. Simply put, there is a huge market for affordable mailboxes that still meet the high end security and business requirements like top of the line email security, SSO, IMAP/Outlook/Mobile access, and still use the same domain name as the more expensive Exchange or Gmail office suites.
For an overwhelming majority of users within larger organizations, email is an absolute necessity but the average cost of $150/year/employee is putting a strain on IT budgets. Furthermore, the projected slowdown in the economy will make our clients more cautious about their IT spending. Our models show a trend of more users being mobile-first (with remote work being mobile-only) and a growth of service-related mailboxes is creating an opportunity to help us improve our clients security while reducing their service bill.
If this sounds like a winning opportunity for your business or your clients we hope you’ll join us in building something new and awesome. Those that help us out will enjoy the service for free for a while but we have a limited number of spots depending on industry and seat count so if you’re even remotely interested please email us as soon as possible.
Turnkey professional websites starting at $199
In 2022, every business needs a website.
It’s true. Whether you’re a law firm, a dentist, or own a childcare/daycare business – you need your own website. “I need to get me a website.” Does that sound like you? When it comes to growing your business, your website is there online as your company’s headquarters showcasing the awesome services that you offer.
Do you already have a website, but need a better one? We’ve got you, too. We’ll take the information from your current site, and place it into your new and improved website designed by us in as little as five business days.
The process is simple, here’s how it works:
First, you choose a design package. We offer two types of custom website packages, starting at $199 that includes hosting and support.
Next, tell us more about your business. Answer a few questions about your business, send us your logos, and pictures, and we’ll use it to customize your website. Already have a website but need an update? We’ve got you. We’ll take all the information from your existing website to the new one.
Finally, we’ll get to work on your custom website. We create most websites in just three business days. Once you place your order, we’ll start right away.
Your own professional website, stress-free
Outsource your website design so that you don’t have to worry about whether the colors complement each other, or if the contact form works properly. Looking for website design for your law firm? We’ve got you. Need a professional website for your medical business? Look no further, we have the design experience to make your business stand out!
We know that often the best website design creates extremely high costs that are not small business friendly. 365 Defender is able to keep costs affordable by creating popular templates that can be customized, instead of starting completely from scratch. Ultimately, what you can expect from us is a secure, professional website that is fully managed and supported for you.