Spam + Virus Filtering
Resell Spam + Virus Filtering
Standard Filtering
While the procedure may seem straightforward, numerous checks are conducted on every email dispatched to your inbox to ascertain, with exceptional precision, whether it warrants classification as hazardous, probable spam, or genuine. These checks are swiftly executed within seconds, ensuring no perceptible delay in the delivery of your emails.
Step 1
Emails Arrive
DNS MX records are set to direct mail to our spam filter clusters for processing.
Step 2
Scanning Starts
A multitude of checks are completed to accurately identify dangerous, suspicious and legitimate emails, giving the email a score.
Step 3
Points Awarded
If the email reaches a point threshold set on the account or mailbox, it is considered spam.
Step 4
Delivered to ICUK Mail Servers
Non spam email is delivered as normal. Mail considered spam is either deleted, marked or quarantined as configured.
External Spam Filtering
The same checks which we complete for Standard Filtering also apply to our external filter. The difference being is we are filtering mail and then passing the filtered mail to a 3rd party mail platform. In the event that the 3rd party mail platform is unavailable, mail will be queued on our servers, and will auto-dequeue once service is restored.
The external filter is charged on an annual basis per domain. Recipients to scan for must be listed within our panel, however there are no limits, or additional charging, regardless of the number entered.
Step 1
Emails Arrive
DNS MX records are set to direct mail to our spam filter clusters for processing.
Step 2
Scanning Starts
A multitude of checks are completed to accurately identify dangerous, suspicious and legitimate emails, giving the email a score.
Step 3
Points Awarded
If the email reaches a point threshold set on the account or mailbox, it is considered spam.
Step 4
Delivered to Remote Server
Non spam email is delivered to your server via SMTP. Mail considered spam is either deleted or marked as configured.
Spam & Virus
Filtering Options
Move Spam
Using this feature all emails which are considered as spam are moved to the mailbox you specify. This means you can still download them, but allow your mail program to handle them differently, or alternatively pass them all to one contact within your office who can check for any false positives.
Delete Spam Email
Use our systems to ensure no spam is ever sent to you. Our systems are upwards of 99% accurate in terms of identifying spam and as such you can have the confidence that only legitimate email will be routed to your mailbox. This is the default action for all virus borne emails.
Mark Message as Spam
Each suspected spam message can have its subject prefixed with a given word; the default being SPAM:. Thus, allowing you to download the messages locally along with all your other email and filter in your own mail client (eg direct them to a specific folder).
Quarantine Spam Email
Standard Filter OnlyThis feature prevents you downloading potentially harmful emails. The emails which are considered as spam are moved to a folder called 'spam' which can only be accessed online using our webmail facility. Should any emails be incorrectly labelled as spam you can easily tell the webmail to move the email to your inbox and thus you can download it normally.
Spam + Virus Filtering
Configuration Controls
Per Mailbox or Domain Control
You can configure spam filtering controls such as tollerance, delivery options and white or blacklists on both a per domain and mailbox basis. This provides the ultimate configuration option, especially when one mailbox has a different requirement than another on the same domain name.
Mail Backup Facilities
External Filter OnlyShould your external mail server or connectivity fail then our servers will automatically queue your email for up to 7 days. Our systems will automatically de-queue once we detect your systems are backup. Alternatively a de-queue facility is available in the Control Panel, which can also allow you to direct mail to an alternative server for disaster recovery purposes.
Allow Lists
Individual email addresses and domain names can be added to the white list. As long as the source IP address isn't on a known block list the email will always be delivered to you no matter what scores may be applied due to the content it contains.
Reverse DNS Check
Most mail servers will have a fully qualified domain name associated to their server. This feature simply checks that the sending server have a valid PTR record, and if not the connection is dropped with an explanation (eg Sending IP address 1.2.3.4 has no reverse DNS). It can be enabled / disabled depending if you would like this be checked as part of the spam filtering routines.
DNS Block List Checks
DNS block lists are used as a means of blocking sending servers that have a reputation for sending spam, and can considerably reduce the amount of spam received by a domain. Each list has its own policy regarding how servers are blocklisted, with some stricter than others. We have three levels to pick from allowing you to check how thorough you would like us to be. By default we recommend the 'basic' checks which include popular block lists such as SpamCop, Spamhaus and Barracuda.
Spam Reports
When the filter identifies a message as junk, it makes a report indicating why the message was targeted as such. This can prove interesting as to why some emails mail have been deemed to be spam in the first place. The report is attached as text file.
Tolerance Levels
Focusing on a self evolving point scoring system, all email is scanned and checked by thousands of different rules to check its validity. The higher the score, the more likely it is spam. The tolerance scale allows you to either increase or decrease the points required by our filter for a message to be considered as Spam.
Personal Block Lists
You can add individual email addresses or whole domain names to a block list. Any emails sent to you by these addresses will bounce back regardless of the content contained within them. This can help cut down unwanted or nuisance senders contacting you.
SPF Checks
Today, nearly all abusive e-mail messages carry fake sender addresses. Sender address forgery is a threat to users and companies alike, and it even undermines the e-mail medium as a whole because it erodes people's confidence in its reliability. The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an open standard specifying a technical method to prevent sender address forgery. Users are able to enable / disable this powerful check.
Virus Filtering
The majority of computer viruses are spread through email, and their effects can be devastating in terms of data breaches and lost hours. Our filter recognises that there is no such thing as a legitimate virus, so emails which contain a known virus are stopped and deleted without exception by default. Advanced users can choose to disable this feature, but we strongly recommend against it. Our virus databases are updated hourly to ensure we offer the maximum protection to our customers.
Spam Graphical Statistics
To show you how our spam filter has benefited you we provide you with graphical statistics. These are detailed statistics which are provided on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. They include not just a graph shown details of the filtering, but which checks caught the highest amount of spam borne email (for example, block list checks, caught x number of emails to your domain).
Our Own Rules
We can configure and create our own rules and have access to our own RBL and URL scanner, meaning we can instantly block future spam without waiting for third party updates.