Drowning in Spam: Integrated Server Spam Filter

Spam mails continue to be a huge problem. Security experts who have taken an in-depth look at the anti-spam industry found that there is an equally huge opportunity to fix it. The best anti-spam solution they recommend is integrating Internet-based spam filters.

Spam filtering in simple words is to get rid of junk e-mails. As with most Internet problems there is no easy solution to remedy spam. However, the spam filtering technique is an attempt to get the inbox under control.

There is an accompanying risk with any spam filtration software like in case of integrating Internet-based spam filter; and that is classifying legitimate e-mail as spam mail. In Internet-based spam filters, the definition of a spam is held in a remote server. An e-mail coming to its receiver gets checked against the spam definition. If it matches the definition then the e-mail is sent to the spam folder or trash.

Alternatively, it is sent to the inbox. A user who gets a genuine e-mail wrongly classified as spam mail can choose to mark it as ‘Not Spam’. This information then gets updated in the definition and consequently any further e-mail from that address automatically goes to the inbox. Similarly certain mails can be marked as ‘Spam’, which again gets updated in the definition. When a number of users use the same spam definition, the database is updated faster.

How Spam filters work?

The normal function of e-mail filters is to examine the words in the e-mail ‘subject line’. A convincing subject line can encourage recipients to actually click on and open the e-mail. But sometimes subject headings can be craftily created to bypass filters.

Often more sophisticated anti-spam methods are deployed by ISPs such as the ‘point system’ that identifies trigger phrases generally used by spammers. An e-mail that goes beyond the ‘points’ is filtered out and never delivered to the customer. Some of the commonly used phrases that get filtered out by ISPs are:
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One way of implementing server based antispam is to use a spamfilter for exchange..

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