- Will spam be deleted before I retrieve my email?
It depends on the way you have configured MailScanner on your domains. If you have set it to "deliver", any email reported by the system as spam will have the subject line modified and header records added (tagged) so that you can automatically filter them from your inbox and place them in a separate folder so that you can check them at a later time. If you have MailScanner set to "delete" spam, any email reported by the system as spam will be deleted from the server and not delivered to your mailbox.
- Will all spam be detected?
No. All the email is scanned and assigned a score based on the likelihood that an email is spam. Thresholds (low scoring and high scoring spam) are used to determine whether an email should be tagged as spam: it is important that this is done to help avoid false-positives and false-negatives.
- Is all email tagged as spam, spam?
Not necessarily. The system is not foolproof and there will be instances where legitimate email is tagged as spam and where spam is not tagged as such. This is why low scoring spam email is delivered by default, so you can filter them email in your email client and check through the spam to ensure there is no email that you actually need.
- Can I have email scanned for just spam and not viruses (or vice-versa)?
Yes, you can configure the service to either scan for viruses, spam or both.
- Will viruses be deleted before I retrieve my email?
Yes, if you set Virus Scanning to yes in the MailScanner Front-end. All emails and file attachments will be scanned for viruses. If one is found, the virus is removed from the email. If you configure MailScanner to deliver cleaned emails, the message will be delivered to your mailbox (after the virus has been removed) and a text file attachment will be added to the email notifying you of the virus infection.
- Will all viruses be detected?
No system can guarantee 100% detection, though nearly all infected files and dangerous file attachments should be detected using this service. The service scans all email received and sent through the server to help ensure that you do not accidentally start spreading a virus yourself.
- Do I still need a virus scanner on my computer?
Yes! Not only can the service not guarantee that all email viruses will be detected, there are many other ways that your computer can become infected. You should always install an anti-virus solution on every computer and ensure that it is constantly kept up to date.
- How do I know whether an email has a virus or is a spam?
There are two methods used to identify these emails to you. Firstly, the subject line of the affected email will be prefixed with one of the following:
- {Disarmed} - indicates that the email contained html tags that are considered dangerous, e.g. iframe and form tags
- {Virus?} - indicates that the email contained a virus and has had the attachment removed.
- {Filename?} - indicates that the email contained a dangerous file attachment which has been removed.
- {Spam?} - indicates that the email is likely to be spam - you should filter these emails into a separate folder in your email client. (or set them to be deleted from the server)
- {Definitely Spam?} - indicates that the email is almost definitely spam because it got a very high detection score - you should filter these emails into a separate folder in your email client. (or set them to be deleted from the server)
Secondly, additional headers are added to the email:
- X-___________-VirusCheck: Found to be clean - indicates that the email passed the virus scanning tests.
- X-___________-VirusCheck: Found to be infected - indicates that email email contained a virus which has been removed.
- X-___________-SpamCheck: spam - indicates that the email is likely to be spam and contains information on how the score was reached.
- X-___________-SpamScore: ssssss - indicates the spam score for the email. Each s represents 1 point, so sssss indicates a score of 5. The service has a default threshold of 5 for {Spam?} and 20 for {Definitely Spam?}
- Can the system simply delete all email marked as spam?
Yes, you can configure MailScanner to do this but bear in mind that it is possible that legitimate email will be deleted and the sender will never know that you didn't receive it. If you're confident that the email marked as {Spam?}, and/or {Definitely Spam?} doesn't contain false positives then you can configure MailScanner to delete that email rather than tag and deliver it.
Another alternative is to have all email marked as {Spam?}, and/or {Definitely Spam?} delivered to a specific email address such as spam@mydomain.com which you can then check from time to time to make sure no legitimate mail was delivered there.
- How do I configure my email software to filter spam into a separate folder?
You should create a separate folder in your email client called Spam. You should then create an inbox rule to place any email containing the strings {Spam?} or {Definitely Spam?} into that folder.
- What can I do to minimise the amount of spam sent to me in the first place?
- Do not use a catchall email account on your domain(s). Only list aliases and POP accounts that you actually use. This stops the frequent spams that fire off emails to a list of names on a domain.
- Obfuscate your email addresses on your website, i.e. replace them with JavaScript "trick" email addresses, or, switch to web forms for initial contact, rather than displaying an email address.
- Never, ever, click on any links in any spam - especially not to "unsubscribe". All this does is confirm to the spammer that they have a "live" address.
- Configure your client to read any incoming emails in plain-text, rather than html. Html spam emails contain links to graphics and scripts on spammers sites, confirming your email address.
If you are using Outlook XP or 2003 you can disable viewing in html, instructions are given here:
http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/plain_text.htm
See also MailScanner Tutorial
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