Microsoft invites users to protect their Exchange and Sharepoint servers from "viruses and other malware" via Forefront security. The Redmond company is offering two standalone downloads, each focused on a respective Microsoft server product. In this context, the company's Download Center is offering both the Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint and the Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server. Each security solution has been optimized in order to deal with the specific issues associated with the server it is designed to integrate with.

"Forefront Security for Exchange Server includes multiple scan engines from industry-leading security firms integrated in a single solution to help businesses protect their Exchange messaging environments from viruses, worms, and spam. It ships with and integrates multiple industry-leading antivirus engines to provide comprehensive, layered protection against the latest threats. Through deep integration with Exchange Server, scanning innovations and performance controls, Forefront Security for Exchange Server helps protect messaging environments while maintaining uptime and optimizing server performance," Microsoft revealed in the description of the Forefront Security for Exchange Server.

"Forefront Security for SharePoint integrates multiple scan engines from industry-leading vendors and content controls to help businesses protect their Microsoft SharePoint collaboration environments by eliminating documents containing malicious code, confidential information, and inappropriate content. Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint manages and integrates industry-leading antivirus engines to provide comprehensive protection against the latest threats to help ensure documents are safe before they are saved to or retrieved from the SharePoint document library," reads a fragment of the description for Forefront Security for SharePoint.

What customers have to know is the fact that Forefront Security for Exchange Server is addressed at Exchange 2007 and 2003 servers. A license for Forefront Security for Exchange Server includes Antigen for Exchange, Antigen for SMTP Gateways, and Antigen Spam Manager. In the same manner, Forefront Security for SharePoint is designed to offer protection for Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services version 3.0, but the license is limited to Antigen. Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server can be accessed via this link, while Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint can be downloaded from here.