The following actions are taken on all incoming email before the email connection is closed with the sending server – this allows the sender to know immediately if their email was not delivered
- Attachments in the email are scanned for viruses. Any message triggering the antivirus software is rejected and the email is returned to the sender stating such. The virus definitions are updated every 30 minutes.
- The email is processed by SpamAssassin – an open source spam detection package which utilizes a highly competent scoring system. Any email generating a level of 5 or higher is rejected and the email is returned to the sender stating such.
- Emails containing password protected compressed files are rejected and the email is returned to the sender stating such. (This is done because such files cannot be scanned by the virus scanning software.)
- The message is delivered to the user’s mailbox.
This system has proven to be highly effective in
- reliably stopping a majority of spam emails from being delivered to the user with an extremely low false positive rate
and
- keeping email borne viruses and unscrupulous attachments from reaching the user.