AntiSpam for IQ-Mail service uses a variety of techniques to identify and detect Spam (unsolicited / junk mail) from legitimate mail intended for you. Unlike malicious / hostile content (viruses), Spam is more difficult to classify and therefore to identify. Hence, Anti-Spam works through tagging the mails as "Spam" rather than deleting.

The Anti-Spam system on IQuinox server scans all messages that are received from external (non-IQuinox) users either via SMTP Server or downloaded via POP3 client. Every message that is suspected of being unsolicited, gets "tagged" as "Spam". A tag is simply an un-intrusive phrase that gets inserted into the header (or subject line) of an e-mail message, e.g. SPAM. This phrase can then be used by your email client to automatically filter these messages and file it away into a "junk" folder. Thus eliminating the offensive and distracting clutter in your Inbox.

The AntiSpam Service can protect you from Spam Mails even before they mails come in (either via POP3 client downloads / mails received via the SMTP server) to the system. Download settings may be applied to e-mail that you are sure is Spam. This ensures that such messages are not even received into the system, saving your Internet bandwidth. In case of mail coming in via SMTP, the mail is directly rejected. In case of POP3 downloads, you can use the Download Filters to either delete such e-mail from the POP3 server or leave it on the POP3 server. In case, the mail matches multiple filter rules, the action taken on the mail (delete from server or leave on server) depends on the first rule matched.

The AntiSpam engine works only on mails received from remote users (either via POP3 client downloads / the SMTP server). For incoming mails, IQuinox AntiVirus scans the mails as soon as the SMTP Server / POP3 client receives them. Immediately after, the anti-virus scanning, the IQuinox AntiSpam engine is invoked. In effect the AntiSpam engine is in-built into the SMTP server / POP3 client.

The features that the AntiSpam service provides include:

Download Filters
The AntiSpam service has a Download Filter settings feature, which can be applied to messages that you are sure are spam. Any e-mail header can be used to identify a message as spam. While downloading e-mail via POP3, messages that match any of the download filters are ignored, saving your Internet bandwidth.

Smart Filtering
The AntiSpam service scans e-mail according to rules that you specify. Filtered e-mail is then tagged as spam or non-spam. Smart filtering is done based on the domains defined in IQuinox and the e-mail addresses defined in Address Books.

Global & User Level Good / Bad Filtering
The AntiSpam service scans e-mail according to rules that you specify in the Global as well as the User Level Good / Bad Filters. Filtered e-mail is then tagged as spam or non-spam. Global Good / Bad Filters are applied for all the recipients in the mail where as the User Level Good / Bad Filters are applied only for those recipients who have enabled such filtering.

Bad URL & Bad Sender Checking
In addition to the above filters, the AntiSpam service extracts the mail form header and also all URLS within the mails. This is then checked against the Bad Sender Database & Bad URL Database. If a match is found the recipients of the mail receive the mail tagged as Spam.

Spam Detection
All messages to be delivered to local recipients pass through the Spam Detection process. In this process, words in each message are compared with the words in the AntiSpam engine database, i.e. SpamDefs. The IQuinox AntiSpam team internally updates the latest trends in spam through various RBLs (RealTime Black Lists) and spam archives. Also, spam continuously originates from new URLs. The AntiSpam engine database is constantly updated with this information that is then used for spam detection.

White List
The AntiSpam service provides a mechanism to automatically add e-mail addresses of recipients from the To and Cc list of a message, to the address book. Messages received from the e-mail addresses in the address book can optionally be treated as non-spam messages.

Learning / Reclassification
Learning (Reclassification) provides a mechanism to inform the AntiSpam service that some mails were classified wrongly. It is possible that Spam Mails could get classified as "NoSpam" and vice-versa. It is required that the users reclassify the mails that were classified wrongly. Learning is a collaborative effort. Any user who receives mail/s that were wrongly classified can reclassify mails. In an organization many users receive the same mail. So when one user reclassifies mails, the effects of the reclassification is available to all the users. Hence the entire organization benefits from a reclassification of a message.

Mail History
To facilitate reclassification the AntiSpam service maintains a history of all the mails received by the users for specific number of days (configurable).

Daily Spam Mail Report [New - v6.0.29]
IQ-Mail provides that for a user spam mails may optionally be left on the server. Periodically if so configured these spam mails can be automatically purged. The Daily Spam Mail Report, if enabled, is generated for those users who have chosen to leave the Spam Mail on the IQ-Mail Server. This report gives a listing (Date, From, Subject) of all the mails currently in Spam Folder.

Spam Definition Database
The AntiSpam service maintains SpamDefs, a database of spam-definition files. This database is used to identify junk mail and can be updated regularly to ensure that it has the latest spam-definitions. Updates are performed by downloading spam definitions from pre-defined URLs.

Auto Download of Spam Definition Files
The AntiSpam service can be set up to automatically update the spam definitions database through the smart update facility.