Using FortiSandbox antivirus inspection

The FortiSandbox appliance and FortiSandbox cloud service are used for automated sample tracking, or sandboxing. You can send suspicious email attachments to FortiSandbox for inspection when you configure antivirus profiles (see Managing antivirus profiles). If the file exhibits risky behavior, or is found to contain a virus, the result will be sent back to FortiMail and a new virus signature is created and added to the FortiGuard antivirus signature database as well.

If email attachments are sent to FortiSandbox, and the "reject" action is configured in the action profile, the actual action will fallback to "system quarantine" if spam or viruses are detected afterward.

Spam URLs already detected by FortiGuard will not be submitted to FortiSandbox.

To add a FortiSandbox unit

Go to System > FortiSandbox > FortiSandbox.

Enable the FortiSandbox Inspection and configure the following settings:

GUI item	Description
FortiSandbox type	If you use an appliance, specify the appliance’s host name or IP address; If you use the regular or enhanced cloud service, see FortiCloud service.
Server name/IP	Enter the FortiSandbox host name or IP address. The port to use is 514. If you have a firewall in between FortiMail and FortiSandbox, make this port is allowed.
Notification email	This is the email address that FortiSandbox will use to send out notifications and reports. If you want to receive such email, enter your email address. For details, see the FortiSandbox documentation.
Statistics interval	Specify how long FortiMail should wait to retrieve some high level statistics from FortiSandbox. The default interval is 5 minutes. The statistics include how many malware are detected and how many files are clean among all the files submitted.
Scan timeout	Specify how long FortiMail will wait to get the scan results. If you receive timeouts and want to wait longer for the results, you can increase the timeout.
Scan result expires in	Specify how long FortiMail will cache the results. 0 means no local cache.
File Scan Setting
File types	Select what types of attachment files will be uploaded to FortiSandbox for scanning.
File patterns	Create your own file pattern that will be uploaded to FortiSandbox, for example, *.txt.
File size	Specify the maximum file size to upload to FortiSandbox. You may want to limit the file size to improve performance.
URL Scan Setting
URL selection	Specify a URL category profile or click New to create one. You can also click Edit to modify the selected profile.
Upload URL on rating error	Sometimes, FortiMail may not be able to get results from the FortiGuard queries (for example, ratings errors due to network connection failures). In this case, you can choose whether to upload those URLs to FortiSandbox for scanning. Choosing not to upload those URLs may help improving the FortiSandbox performance.
Bypass one-time URL	When enabled, any URLs that are in the personal or business category and are a pre-defined filter pattern, or if the URL is locally defined, bypass URL submission to FortiSandbox.
Number of URLs per email	Specify how many URLs will be scanned in one email message. Note: If the FortiSandbox type is set to Appliance, the valid range is 1 to 100; if it is set to Cloud or Enhanced Cloud, the valid range is 1 to 12.

FortiCloud service

If you have a valid FortiMail Cloud Sandbox entitlement, select Regular or Enhanced Cloud when configuring the service for use with the FortiMail appliance.

Depending on your FortiCare contract, FortiMail Cloud Sandbox provides two operational modes:

Regular cloud service: You will share the Cloud Sandbox service with other users.
Enhanced cloud service: You will have dedicated Cloud Sandbox service and enjoy better performance.

If you have a hosted FortiSandbox Cloud deployment in FortiCloud, or are using a hardware or virtual FortiSandbox appliance, FortiMail should be configured in appliance mode. Check to ensure FortiMail can communicate with FortiSandbox over TCP port 514.

To use the FortiCloud service

Go to Dashboard > Status.
Under License Information, click Activate besides FortiCloud.
In the popup dialog box, enter the email address and password for the FortiCloud account.
Click OK to log on to FortiCloud.

Now the License Information should display as Paid Contract (if you use a demo unit, it displays as Trial License).

Go to System > FortiSandbox > FortiSandbox and select Cloud or Enhanced Cloud for FortiSanbox type depending on your FortiCare contract. Also configure other scan settings (see Using FortiSandbox antivirus inspection).
After you activate FortiCloud and configure the FortiSandbox scan settings, you can access the FortiCloud web portal by going to Dashboard > Status and clicking Launch Portal besides FortiCloud under License Information.

The portal allows you view the FortiMail file submission status and FortiSandbox cloud scan results.

If you upgrade from older releases, a reminder will appear on the dashboard, telling you to activate FortiCloud (that is, to create an FortiCloud account) before you can access the FortiCloud portal.

If you are running FortiMail HA, you must activate FortiCloud service on the primary and secondary units. For active-passive HA, this is to ensure that the secondary unit can continue to use the FortiCloud service in case of HA failover. For active-active HA, this is because all the units need to access the service.