Introduction

Forefront products provide a wide range of security-related functions, such as removing viruses, stopping spam, and intercepting malware before it reaches users’ computers, as well as filtering documents and files for inappropriate content, protecting users from malicious Web sites, and managing users’ identity information and associated permissions.

Protection for Microsoft Systems

The Forefront brand was originally applied to Antigen-branded products that were acquired from Sybari, but has since been expanded to encompass products that Microsoft developed in-house or acquired elsewhere. (For details of the Forefront products and release dates, see the chart “Forefront Product Line“.)

The Forefront products discussed in this report perform the following functions:

• Protect Microsoft applications from malware and inappropriate content (Forefront Protection for Exchange Server, Forefront Protection for SharePoint)
• Protect Windows desktop, laptop, and tablet computers (collectively,