MailEssentials no longer blocks office documents

Overview

GFI MailEssentials no longer blocks office documents from incoming and outgoing mails. The attachment filtering rule shows that *.doc, *.docx, *.xls, and *.xlsx files should all be blocked. However, some attachments are allowed through.

Solution

GFI MailEssentials seems to be not recognizing the file signature for files generated through Office 365.

MailEssentials 21.6 using patch 7 doesn't have the issue, as long as the recipient domain is set in the MailEssentials Configuration UI > Antispam > Settings > Local domains, otherwise the emails would be skipped out of the attachment scan.

Additionally, please make sure that the rule is configured to filter by Extension and Signature.

Testing

Applying the solution above ensures that attachments are blocked correctly.

If the issue still persists, please generate the troubleshooting logs as follows:

• Make sure that you have tracing enabled.
• Wait for at least 30 minutes to gather enough information and for the issue to be reproduced.
• Run the troubleshooter:
  1. Start > Programs > GFI MailEssentials > Troubleshooter
  2. Follow the Log Generation Wizard for collecting the required and pertinent information.
  3. Select New Case when completing the log generation to attach the logs to a new case that will be automatically created, or open a support ticket manually and attach the logs to that ticket, so that the Support team can investigate the problem.