Preserving Microsoft Exchange Server for 17a-4 - Helpful Tips for FINRA Companies

Server Consulting is a common in-house e-mail program used by financial firms to control their communications. It permits complete get a grip on over reports, revealing of connections, calendars and public files. Moreover, it's relatively low priced work, so many organizations choose Exchange instead of outsourcing their email to some third-party provider. Nevertheless, FINRA members must be aware that, automagically, it is perhaps not agreeable. Therefore an additional step must be taken up to ensure specific compliance rules such as for instance 17a-4 are reached.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It's important that financial companies understand personnel can simply delete existing or historic messages off their Exchange server whenever you want, even when a strong works standard backups messages can be eliminated between backup rounds. Also attempting to recover emails from past backups is difficult, even for an experience technician. Therefore, financial firms who use Microsoft Exchange as their in-house email solution require a method to ensure they are agreeable with today's long-term email archiving and supervisory regulations such as 17a-4.The Forward and Store MethodThe best method for FINRA firms to ensure complete compliance of their in-house Microsoft Exchange server is with the forward and store method. It is a method to obtain the demands of 17a-4 and makes sure messages are fully secured. It forwards a copy of all messages before they attain the Exchange server and stores them offsite in a certified manner.This means, e-mails are kept for seven years, on non-writable computer and made readily available to compliance officers for regular supervision or in the case of an audit.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; But additionally users are totally unaware of the procedure and so companies are guaranteed total compliance with crucial data compliance legislation prevented from concept. This is important for on-going supervision or in the event of an audit where regulator need an electric records demand of historical messages.Supervision and Retrieval of EmailOnce all e-mails are now being forward to the service for archiving, it is crucial for compliance offices to find a way to supervise the e-mail archive for on-going auditing. This is usually done by way of a web based interface. But, a few important characteristics are needed:Flagging of emails: Compliance officers should able to prove to auditors they are viewing emails and can put in a 'watched' banner to emails.Lexicon searches: The capacity to conduct complete lexicon centered searches of emails. What this means is any messages with certain words or partial words could be easily discovered.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; It should also range from the seeking of attachmentsOn-the-fly Key word flagging: it is important that messages could be flagged predicated on a summary of tips word on-the-fly, this means as emails flow-through the archive are instantly flagged for non-compliant key terms and the compliance officers is alertedDownload historical messages in a format needed by FINRA: Historical emails message need to be search and downloadable in.eml format for regulators. This is an essential requirement of rule 17a-4 and FINRA will ask for this during an automated documents requestSpam and Virus Filtering: To reduce the amount of emails and make supervision easier, spam and virus blocking should be contained in the archiving service to reduce amount of emails to watch and superviseEmail encryption: This should be area of the service to enable protected encrypted messageFailover: In the event the internal Exchange server decreases users should be able to access emails and continue to deliver and receive messages from the different locationSummary:Financial companies who're utilizing an internal Microsoft Exchange server for their email need to be aware that it is perhaps not agreeable. And a supplementary step must be taken fully to ensure they meet with the demands of rule 17a-4. The forward and shop method is the better way to ensure they appropriately archive and supervise messages. Furthermore, they must be certain they can appropriately access their email archive for on-going auditing.