Choosing Anti-Spam Software That Is Right For You
E-mail spam, also known as “bulk e-mail” or “junk e-mail,” is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by e-mail. A common synonym for spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE). Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. “UCE” refers specifically to “unsolicited commercial e-mail.” (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
It is believed that on an average an email user will receive more than 2000 spam emails in a year! According to some research as much as 77 percent of all email sent is spam. With such high amounts of spam being sent anti-spam software becomes a necessity just as anti-virus software has done previously.
Spam is one of the biggest disadvantages of using email. There is every need to find ways to separate the wanted emails from the unwanted and unsolicited ones. Choosing the correct anti-spam software or Spam filter is the right way to cut down on the spam you receive.
Apart from the usual spam emails, the new menace has been created by the “phishing emails” targeting primarily eBay, PayPal and other financial institutions accounts. These emails come as a “Last Warning”, “Attention Required”, “Password Change Required” or “Your account is suspended” among many more. These mails appear to have come from eBay, PayPal or your bank and provide a link a website that appears to be genuine.
These pages are designed just like the original pages and the unsuspecting user ends up providing his/her sensitive information like username/password or Credit Card Information to these duplicate pages.
There have been many ways of filtering spam emails like blacklisted domains, banned IPs, words in subject and many more. The spammers have always found out a way to change their identity. But here is the catch. The spammers are being paid to send the message. They can change their Domains, IPs & subject lines.
Things to look for when choosing a SPAM filtering solution:
This is a brief introduction to the features and capabilities that your SPAM solution should provide in-order to combat the ever growing and ingenious ways that spammers get their emails into your inbox:
* Works at the email transport level.
* Always up-to-date software by having the ability to use DNS blacklists and SURBLs
* Attachment filtering
* Custom tests: SPF test, Keyword filtering, Greylisting, Reverse DNS, FQDN test, etc.
* Reject emails sent to non-existent recipients
* General email filtering tools - you can create your own IP address, sender and recipient email address lists, whitelists etc.
* Ability to learn from blocked emails
* Monitoring and Reporting to let you know how much spam the software has stopped
If your looking for a solution to your SPAM problem we use and recommend the following:
For Home Users (Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird etc.)
For the Corporate Environment (Microsoft Exchange)
TAGS:
anti spam software, email, e mail, phishing, spam, spammers, spam software, uce
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