Barracuda Email Defense Gateway

Barracuda Email Defense Gateway

Barracuda Email Defense Gateway

This product is used for filtering out (blocking or quarantining) malicious emails, phishing emails, and spam.
Users can control their undelivered email by accessing the client web interface:
https://ess.barracudanetworks.com/ 


Quarantine Notifications

When you initially log in, you will be directed to the Quarantine Notifications area. This indicates the hours that you are notified of messages in your queue. You can adjust these notifications to your preference.




Message Log

To view your Quarantine, click on the Message Log tab. By default, the Message Filter will show Quarantined and only the items for the last 2 days.



You can change your Message Filter drop-down to include All, Allowed, UI Delivered, Not Allowed, Blocked, Deferred, or Quarantined. You can also change the date to go back up to one month. You will need to hit the Search button if you make any changes. There are also advanced search function capabilities.




Quarantined Messages

There are different reasons why messages are quarantined. Below is an example.



  1. Bulk Email: means that it was an email sent to multiple people in the organization, Barracuda flags this as potentially unwanted spam.
  2. Email Categorization (Socialmedia): means Barracuda flags messages from or having to do with Social Media and quarantines them and does not automatically deliver them.
  3. Email Categorization (Marketing): means that Barracuda has flags messages categorized as marketing newsletters or advertisements. Barracuda quarantines these messages and does not automatically deliver them.
  4. Score: means that Barracuda has given a risk score of an email, these scores determine the likelihood of being spam or malicious. Anything with a risk score of 2-5 will be quarantined. Anything above 5 will be blocked.
  5. DKIM: means the sender has not set up DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail). Which is a security standard that verifies that the sender is who they state they are. Method quarantines any email from a sender that does not have DKIM set up. You should contact the sender and let them know that they should have their IT department implement it.
  6. Sender Policy Framework (SPF): means the sender has not set up SPF. Which is a security standard that verifies that the sender’s authorized mail servers. Method quarantines any email from a sender that does not have SPF set up. You should contact the sender and let them know that they should have their IT department implement it.
  7. DMARC: means the sender has not set up DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance). Which is an email security measure that helps prevent hackers from spoofing email accounts. You should contact the sender and let them know that they should have their IT department implement it.

Message Options


  1. Deliver: means that it is being delivered this one time.
  2. Allow List: means that the specific email and all future emails from the sender will be added to the Allow List and delivered instead of being held in quarantine.
  3. Blocked: has two options; email or domain. Only ever choose email address (not domain). If you receive an email from a Gmail account and you choose Domain; no sender from any Gmail account will be able to deliver to you.
  4. Recategorize: has a drop-down to change the message type so it will be handled differently by filters.
  5. Export: allows you to download the message log information as a csv file.
  6. Message: shows the message in the window pane.
  7. Source: shows the header and footer information.
  8. Download: will download the message as a .eml file that you can see in Outlook.
  9. Show/Hide Message History: toggles information about the email.
  10. Delete: will delete the email from the quarantine without delivery and it will no longer show in notifications.
  11. Report: as incorrectly blocked provides information to Barracuda so they can redefine it and similar messages in the future.
  12. Show Details: will provide information about who the sender is, who the recipients are, IP addresses, etc.

Sender Policy

From the Settings tab, you can click on the Sender Policy tab. These policies are unique to your account. It will list who you have blocked and approved for delivery. You can make changes to your list by adding or removing senders.




Blocked Emails

Any emails in the Blocked category will need to be released by IT. Please submit a ticket with the sender’s email address so we can review it.




Understanding why emails are blocked

There are different reasons why emails can be blocked. Below is an example:



  1. Sender Policies: means that the user has created a custom rule to block this sender.
  2. Intent Analysis: means that Barracuda is reviewing the email and may deliver it.
  3. GeoIP Policies: means the email has an origination IP address outside of the United States. A sender might be a local rep in Utah, but if the HQ of the company is in the Netherlands, it will be blocked. Upi will need to contact IT to have it released.
  4. Score: means that Barracuda has given a risk score of an email, these scores determine the likelihood of being spam or malicious. Anything with a risk score of 2-5 will be quarantined. Anything above 5 will be blocked.
  5. Barracuda Reputation: means that the sender’s domain has been blacklisted and the users need to clear up the blacklist before emails can be delivered.
  6. Barracuda Real-Time System (BRTS): means that it is under malicious email scrutinization however, it may be cleared and delivered.
  7. Invalid Recipient / Rejected: means that the email address does not exist in the domain.
  8. Spam: means that the email was categorized as spam, which includes bulk emails.
  9. Phishing: means a targeted phishing attack to compromise credentials.

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