Anti spam & Anti Virus Email Filtering Solutions

Anti spam and anti virus email filtering solutions is one of the wisest tactics one of the best ways for cutting your business’s exposure to threats such as phishing, malware and ransomware.

Even if you are using anti virus software and network monitoring tools, anti spam and anti virus email filtering solutions are still crucial in order to detect known viruses and malware based on their signatures. Zero day threats are unlikely to be spotted. Hackers are also good at disguising their activities to avoid being detected by network monitoring tools. Anti spam and anti virus email filtering solutions prevent known and zero-day threats at source and prevent them from entering your network.

Advanced anti spam and anti virus email filtering solutions result in spam detection rates over 99.9% and identify 100% of inbound malware. The solutions can also be implemented to scan outbound emails in order to keep your IP reputation healthy and prevent your IP address being blacklisted by a global block list agency – which could also have unwelcome outcomes for the accessibility of your website(s).

How Advanced Anti Spam and Anti Virus Solutions Work

Advanced anti spam and anti virus solutions use extra mechanisms to those you will see in a “standard” email filtering solution in order to accurately and efficiently discover threats. Whereas a standard email filtering solution will incorporate features such as a real-time block lists, Sender Policy Frameworks and Recipient Verification Protocols, plus tools permitting you to set your own acceptable spam thresholds, an advanced anti spam and anti virus solution includes:

1. Greylisting: This is a process in which all incoming emails are returned to their originating mail servers with a request for the email to be sent again. Usually this process slows the receipt of emails by a minute or two; but, due to hackers’ mail servers being too busy to answer the request, spam emails are never returned.
2. SUBRL Filtering: When a greylisted email has been sent back, it goes through a series of secondary processes. One of these processes – SUBRL filtering – checks any URLs included within the body of the email to ensure they do not appear on a list of URLs registered in earlier spam emails. This process significantly cuts the chance that an employee will fall victim to a phishing attack.
3. DMARC Authentication: This is an email authentication protocol that is used to verify that the sender of an email message is authorized to use a particular domain. It enables domain owners to protect their domain against abuse, and is used by advanced anti spam and anti virus solutions to detect and prevent email impersonation attacks.
4. Dual Anti Virus Software Engines: Dual anti virus software engines means software from two different suppliers are used to maximize the probability of malware and viruses being identified. Provided the dual anti virus engines are free (i.e. not both proprietary software), you will get a higher malware detection rate than just using one engine. Advanced anti spam and anti virus solutions typically use proprietary software and open source software in unison, or in the case of SpamTitan, two leading AV engines from Bitdefender and Clam AV.
5. Sandboxing: Antivirus software employs signature-based detection. When a virus or malware variant is discovered, its unique signature is added to a detection list. When that variant is encountered again it will be prevented. AV software is not as good as protecting zero-day threats – New malware and viruses that have not been seen previously. This is where sandboxing is needed. Sandboxing provides an isolated environment where malicious attachments can be hit with deep analysis to identify malicious actions, such as command and call server callbacks. Sandboxing permits new threats to be identified and provides protection until AV lists are updated to include the signatures for new dangers.

In most instances, using an advanced anti spam and anti virus solution does not mean you need to have an advanced skill set. Most vendors understand that companies want to set and forget online security solutions, and make the configuration and management of their anti spam and anti virus email filtering solutions as straightforward as it can be.

Finally, the trend in recent years has been to move away from high maintenance solutions that protect each device on its own. Most advanced anti spam and anti virus email filtering solutions are managed from a centralized web-based portal through which the filtering parameters can be synchronized with directory tools in order to create flexible user policies.