GFI Software has released GFI MailEssentials Complete, an all-in-one software solution for the SMB that combines anti-spam, anti-phishing, and email security in one product. Customers can deploy MailEssentials in the delivery model of their choice: on premises as a physical or virtual device, or as a hosted service.

According to GFI, the solution as an appliance is designed to be up and running in 15 minutes. The virtual appliance is targeted for those who want to provision a virtual server in lieu of adding an extra appliance to their infrastructures. With hosted MailEssentials Complete, businesses get not only the full-featured MailEssentials product, but also an email continuity service through which they can access and send email if their internal infrastructure is offline.

"SMBs are demanding in how they deploy email security solutions. They want a solution that best meets their needs and best works within their IT infrastructure," said Alex Eckelberry, general manager of GFI's Security Business Unit. "Whether it's on-premise software installed on the mail server, a physical or virtual gateway appliance, a hosted service or a hybrid of all delivery models, organizations want increased flexibility, continuity and redundancy from their email security strategies. With MailEssentials Complete, we are providing customers with access to solutions how they want them."

Seeing as it's time for spring cleaning, and with Earth Day right around the corner, many businesses are scheduling an annual day of recycling old equipment and upgrading to newer models.

Following on a post from earlier this week about Avoiding the Most Common SMB IT Mistakes, which included tips about how to properly dispose of old computers and gadgets, we wanted to dive a little deeper into one area of tech recycling: copiers, or all-in-one printer/scanner/fax machines.

If you own or manage a mid- to large-sized business, you probably lease your copier rather than own it. About a year ago, CBS aired an exposé of a security threat regarding these machines. The enterprise-sized models usually contain a hard drive, which stores all the data that passes through them. Shred paper documents all you want, if the information passed through the copier/scanner/fax machine, it's stored in the hard drive.

The problem is when these machines are leased, businesses owners and managers don't take measures to ensure that the hard drives are wiped or destroyed before the machines go back to the leasing company--who often resell them. If the hard drive remains in the copier, the next customer has access to all the sensitive information that was scanned, faxed, and copied while you leased the copier. Think of what passes through that machine: employee identification, such as passports and social security numbers, invoices, financial statements, credit card statements from T&E reports, and more.

PCMag's Security Watch blog responded to the CBS report with the following advice:

"What if your printer does contain a hard drive--what should you do before selling or giving it away? ... [W]hen the hard drive is an optional component, you'll generally find it easy to remove. Those with sufficient skills may be able to mount the drive in a PC and use secure file deletion software to wipe out any data beyond the possibility of recovery. Of course you could also just remove and destroy the hard drive before disposing of the printer.

"If the printer has a fully integrated hard drive that can't be removed, and if the vendor doesn't supply any sort of utility to wipe that drive, you're pretty much out of luck. You can cross your fingers and hope the recipient doesn't skim your data out of the printer. Or you can trash the hard drive even at the expense of turning the printer into e-waste."

Whether your business leases or owns its copiers, make sure you have candid conversations with the supplier about the hard drive and your options for keeping or destroying the data that's on them.