What Forefront Products Do

The Forefront products protecting Microsoft application servers (Exchange, SharePoint, and Communications servers) were originally Antigen-branded products that were acquired from Sybari and have been developed further by Microsoft. (The previous Antigen products remain available for protecting older versions of Exchange and SharePoint.)

Forefront products for Exchange Server, SharePoint, and Communications Server use multiple antivirus scanning engines, instead of a single engine as in many competitive products, which provides higher detection rates and increases the likelihood that emerging threats will be caught quickly— for example, some vendors emphasize viruses, others Trojans, and a variety of heuristic detection methods may better identify previously unknown viruses. Multiple engines also provide continuous protection: while one engine’s signature file is being updated, other engines continue to scan new content.

Administrators can enable up to five engines, from Authentium, Kaspersky, Microsoft, Norman, and Virusbuster. Microsoft may add other engines, or drop any of the current ones, in the future; Forefront administrators will be notified when new engines are available.