Anti Spam User FAQs

I just got my first Quarantine Summary Report (or my mail administrator told us we were going to start using a new antispam filter). What do I need to do to start using this service?

Nothing. Once your mail administrator has configured the filtering there is nothing you need to do. Your mail will be automatically filtered prior to arriving in your inbox.

For users who want to learn more about the various settings and options available from within the administrative control panel please visit the users' online documentation.

How do I know it's working?

You will get less spam and you will receive a daily quarantine summary (when configured by your mail administrator) which provides a list of the messages that were blocked or held in quarantine.

What if the system is blocking legitimate mail?

Your daily quarantine summary will display the list of blocked messages. If you see that a legitimate sender is being blocked, you may click the "deliver" link to have that message delivered to your inbox. Doing so will also whitelist that sender (if allowed by your mail administrator) so that future messages from that sender bypass the filters.

In very specific (and unusual) situations, legitimate senders might continue to be be misclassified as spam by the filters and these may be reported by forwarding a copy of the genuine messages (false positives) to [email protected] for investigation.

What if I keep getting spam?

Because of the evolving methods employed by spammers (and a desire to reduce the quaratining of legitimate mail), there will always be a nominal amount of spam that slips through the filters so this is to be expected.

The administrative control panel does contain various settings that may be configured to increase or decrease the aggresiveness of the filtering policies. Any aggressiveness settings other the default "normal" settings take the control away from the service in determining what is spam and what is not. Lower than normal settings will increase false negatives (leaks). Higher settings will contribute to false positives. Ask your email administrator for additional assistance if necessary.

But if excessive amounts of spam continue to get through the filter, contact your mail administrator and send a copy of the spam that continues to get through to to [email protected] to help improve the algorithms that drive the filters.

How will I know if the system is blocking legitimate mail?

You may review the daily quarantine to ensure that legitimate mail is not being blocked unnecessarily.

How do I whitelist a sender or domain so that they bypass the filters in the future?

When you click the "deliver" link in the daily quarantine, the sender is automatically whitelisted (when configured by your mail administrator). Additionally, you or your mail administrator may log in to the administrative control panel to proactively whitelist (and blacklist) users and domains.

How do I blacklist a sender or domain?

You or your mail administrator may log in to the administrative control panel to proactively block users, domains, country-of-origin, language and other variables.

What if I don't want the daily quarantine messages?

You or your mail administrator may disable the quarantine messages from within the administrative control panel

What if I create a new mail alias for myself?

Your new mail alias will be filtered and delivered to you by default, but if you begin receiving a separate daily quarantine summary for this alias, then the mail filtering system needs to be made aware that the alias is associated with your account. This occurs automatically when the LDAP protocol is used to manage users, but in the event that users are manually configured, simply log in to the via the administrative console and add the alias to your account. There are no additional per-account charges for aliases so you may add as many as you like.

 

Feel free to contact us for additional information about our antispam services.