Patent ID: 7380274

Claim:
A method for restricting transmission of e-mail messages between a first site and a plurality of second sites in accordance with a plurality of administrator selectable policies, said method comprising: utilizing a simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) relay in a transmission path for the e-mail messages between said first site and selected ones of said second sites; applying a plurality of policy managers, responsive to said SMTP relay, for enforcing administrator selectable policies, said policies comprising at least a first source/destination policy, at least a first content policy and at least a first virus policy, said policies characterized by a plurality of administrator selectable criteria, and a plurality of administrator selectable exceptions to said criteria, said policy managers operative for: managing access by restricting transmission of at least a first subset of the e-mail messages between said first site and said second sites in accordance with said source/destination policy; managing content by restricting transmission of at least a second subset of the e-mail messages between said first site and said second sites in accordance with said content policy; and managing viruses by restricting transmission of at least a third subset of the e-mail messages between said first site and said second sites in accordance with said virus policy, wherein each of said e-mail messages includes at least one recipient address, and wherein at least one of the e-mail messages is transmitted to a respective recipient address in response to a predetermined policy result of a policy manager.