A spam filter is a software tool that helps to segregate safe emails from those containing potentially dangerous content. This includes malware, phishing attacks and other malicious content that could be downloaded or clicked on. Spam filters are used by businesses and organizations to ensure that only legitimate email makes its way into users’ inboxes and that unwanted messages are sent directly to junk folders. Often, these filters are built into email programs such as Microsoft Outlook. Spam filters use a range of methods to identify and block unsolicited bulk communications. These filters analyze content, email addresses, headers, attachments and language to determine whether a message is spam. Using heuristic methods, these filters look for specific words and phrases that are commonly found in spam emails. They also examine the origin of the email to see if it is suspicious.
Viruses and malware can be hidden within the body of an email or in file attachments. Antivirus protection is usually included in a spam filtering solution, and uses signature-based detection technology to identify malware code in an email and prevent it from being executed on your computers. In addition, a spam filter can block emails from known or suspected spammers by checking them against lists of email addresses, domains and IP addresses. These blocks help to minimize the risk of unsolicited emails being delivered to your employees and reduce time spent by IT staff investigating and resolving these messages.
The main benefit of a spam filter is that it can significantly reduce the number of emails that are delivered to an organization’s email accounts. These emails can contain malicious code that could be downloaded and run on a device, leading to security breaches and other potential issues. Spam filters are able to recognize the content of these messages and mark them as spam or quarantine them depending on their level of risk. They can then be blocked from entering the company’s email system altogether or diverted to a junk or archive folder.
Advanced spam filters can be configured in several ways to provide more detailed control over which messages are filtered and processed. The options available include Increase spam score (ASF) and Automatically mark a message as spam (ASP). These settings can be turned on or off. Messages that are marked as spam with the ASF option on will have their SCL Spam score increased, while those marked with the ASP option on are automatically considered spam and won’t reach the inbox. These options are set to Test by default. When the ASF or ASP options are enabled, they will add a default test X-header to the message and apply the configured action. You can’t configure different test mode actions for each ASF or ASP setting that you enable.