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The Network Box Mail Portal system addresses just that – control itself, and the delegation of that control. While the my.network-box.com web interface permits the administrator to view and control the Mail policies of the organization, at the gateway, Mail Portal allows the administrator to delegate that control to end-users and put them in control of their own email (while still being restricted by overall company policy).
Network Box, as a managed service, has always been primarily managed from the NOC (Network Operation Centre). This provides for centralized configuration, backup, monitoring and maintenance of the Network Box device. However Network Box also permits for delegation of certain management functions (such as anti-spam, quarantine release, content filtering policies, etc) to the local administrator (via a web-based interface called “my.network-box.com”). Network Box Mail Portal contains patent-pending technology, and implements a "virtual per-user administrative interface", extending delegation of manageability and maintenance of the security gateway down to the per-user level. This is an industry first.
The Mail Portal system allows end users in organizations using SMTP email servers to have direct control of their quarantined emails for the first time. This means that in the event that an end user sees an email which has (in their opinion) been incorrectly blocked as spam; they can, with no more effort than ticking a checkbox, and clicking a single button have that email released. Using the same very easy to understand report, they can also tick an additional checkbox, to request that the sender is white listed in the future.
Implementation
Mail Portal delivers this functionality via two systems: 1. An email-based report. This is sent periodically (monthly, weekly, daily, or a custom-reporting period at a minimum hourly), to all users who had mail activity during the reporting period. It reports on traffic for that user through the Network Box, and allows click-to-release quarantine release and request for white listing. 2. A Web-based interface. This is accessible either via the email report, or via username + password, and shows the users email traffic on the box. The user can search for past email, and can release from quarantine and/or whitelist/blacklist (if so authorized).
To avoid the issue of the administrator having to maintain accounts for all his end-users, security is implemented via two mechanisms:
_ The links in the email report contain secure encrypted security tokens. Possession of the email (and its tokens) permits the user to access his Mail Portal web interface without requiring a username or password. The secure tokens defend against users accessing each other’s Mail Portals (as they are only known by the user holding the report and the Mail Portal system itself). Possession of the email report is sufficient to gain secure access to Mail Portal (without requiring a username or password).
_ As an alternative, users can use the SETTINGS tab of Mail Portal to create passwords for themselves. They can then login to Mail Portal directly (without requiring a link from an email report) using their email address and password. An administrative interface is provided (under the my.network-box.com administrative system) to permit administrators to reset/remove passwords for users (or alternatively, the user can just click on a link in a Mail Portal report to gain access to Mail Portal and reset the password for themselves).
Should the administrator need to oversee or assist users with this, he can use the my.network-box.com administrative system to assign/reset Mail Portal users directly. Using secure token-based authentication, user account and password maintenance is in the hands of the users themselves. This reduces administrative overhead, but still permits the administrator to help (using my.network-box.com Mail Portal user administration) the users if necessary.
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