Block SPAM and Viruses from Your Email Server

Email spam targets individual users with direct mail messages. Email spam lists are often created by scanning Usenet postings, stealing Internet mailing lists, or searching the Web for addresses. Email spams typically cost users money out-of-pocket to receive. Many people - anyone with measured phone service - read or receive their mail while the meter is running, so to speak. Spam costs them additional money. On top of that, it costs money for ISPs and online services to transmit spam, and these costs are transmitted directly to subscribers.

WebClean SPAM Filter

Testing has shown that upwards of 98% of the "true SPAM" that is received comes from the servers that are blacklisted. The downside, of course, is that some fairly prominent servers are in the databases (e.g., "mta1.rcsntx.swbell.net") as well. You can use as many or as few of the databases as you want, define your own database list, and make it as aggressive or open as you want. Just be aware that you WILL find people that have been sending messages to you that are on the "bad" lists and you will need to make some adjustments. Also, you will find some of your users don't have their e-mail client setup to use SMTP Authenticate for outbound messages. It also supports "POP before send" to make the sending more transparent for those mail clients that don't use SMTP Auth by default (e.g., Outlook).

The anti-spam function uses a pre-defined (but configurable) set of Open Relay and/or SPAM site databases (e.g., ORDB.ORG, ORBZ.ORG, SPAMCOP.NET, etc.) to block messages that are coming inbound from the mail servers that are identified in the databases. It also allows several lists of manually defined filters: IP addresses allowed even though blacklisted, IP addresses disallowed even though NOT blacklisted, "MAIL FROM:" allowed and disallowed, "RCPT TO:" allowed and disallowed.

A side benefit of the filter is that it closes any Open Relay within your InterChange or WebMail system caused by "FORWARD.TXT created relays" and "Shared POP3 created relays". The session is not rejected (550 error) until the sending server has started listing the RCPT TO: addresses. This should cause some of the offending senders to assume that the addresses are bad and remove them (we can hope). The rejection messages are configurable so that someone (human) that gets the rejection will have the info and, optionally, contact information to reach you.

Anti-Virus Scanning

WebClean Anti-virus scanner will check mail messages passing through the mail server. The anti-virus function uses a single workstation copy of one of several anti-virus scanning engines.

When a virus is detected on a message (inbound or outbound), there are multiple options to handle the disposition:

Copy entire message to a specific directory/folder. Send a notification message to an e-mail address (administrator). Attach entire message to a notification message and send it to an e-mail address (administrator). Remove the virus attachment, replace it with the contents of a pre-defined text file, and send it to the recipient.

Attachment Filtering

WebClean Attachments scanner will check mail messages passing through the mail server and those messages with attachments will be handled as configured. This is in addition to the virus scanning functions.

When an attachment is detected on a message (inbound or outbound), multiple options to handle the disposition include:

Copy entire message to a specific directory/folder. Send a notification message to an e-mail address (administrator). This message does NOT include the filtered attachment file. Attach entire message to a notification message and send it to an e-mail address (administrator). Remove the attachment, replace it with the contents of a pre-defined text file, and send it to the recipient.

In practice, any of these actions may be used alone or in combination to accomplish the function required by the administrator.