Filtering Categories

The Email Security product flags messages that have suspicious content, and sorts them into one of categories listed below.

 

Notes: • The default settings can be manually changed for a domain or individual mailbox. • Credit Card, Social Security, and Email Data Compliance categories are available only on the Email Security appliance. These categories are not available on the Email Security hosted service.

List of Categories

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Virus: The Email Security product uses traditional signature-based filtering for virus detection. Each email message is analyzed by two separate third-party virus definitions: ClamAV and Kaspersky. By default, the system blocks all emails that have viruses detected in them.

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Phishing: Phishing fraudulently tries to lure the user into giving up personal information such as credit card numbers, passwords, social security numbers, and account information. Phishing messages often claim to come from banks, department stores, and online merchants such as eBay. By default, the system places this type of email in quarantine.

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Adult Spam: The Adult Spam category is reserved for spam messages exhibiting sexually explicit characteristics (words, images, hyperlinks, etc.). By default, the system blocks adult content so that it is not available within user quarantine.

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Spam: Spam is unsolicited or unwanted bulk electronic messaging. By default, the system places this type of email in quarantine.

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Bot: Messages of this type come from a Bot. A Bot is a compromised or infected PC that has sent spam. By default, the system places this type of email in quarantine.

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Non-Delivery Report/Bounce: This category includes bounce messages and auto replies (such as out of office messages). It is designed to help reduce backscatter. By default, the system allows these messages.

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PDF contains Javascript: Portable document format (PDF) files can optionally contain and execute Javascript code. If a PDF file that contains Javascript is attached to an incoming message, by default the system allows these messages.

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MS Office file contains macro: Files created with Microsoft Office applications can optionally contain and execute a macro, which is a series of commands and instructions. If a Microsoft Office file that contains a macro is attached to an incoming message, by default the system allows these messages.

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Not AV Scanned For messages that cannot be scanned with the Email Security antivirus scanner or filtered, you can specify how the messages will be handled.

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Junk: The Junk category is reserved for bulk mailings where the primary intent is essentially a promotion or advertisement and no deceptive tactics are used. Junk rules only apply to inbound traffic. By default, the system allows junk mail but adds a subject tag of ADV: before the mail subject line. The subject tag is configurable on a domain or individual mailbox level. Junk email is also configurable to be quarantined on a per domain or per mailbox level.

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Non-compliant MIME: Handling of emails that do not conform to RFC standards.

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Accept Security Awareness test messages: Bypass filtering of messages sent from a Security Awareness vendor. The default is to filter such messages.

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Credit Card: Scans the message and text attachments for credit card numbers.

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Social Security: Scans the message and text attachments for Social Security numbers.

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Add Foreign Language: You can apply foreign language filtering on a per-language basis. By default, the system blocks mail with non-English language character sets (Russian, Cyrillic, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese), but you can also filter email for languages that use the English character set like Spanish or French. If you normally receive email in blocked languages, configure your settings so that these messages pass through the filters.

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Attachments: For each type of attachment, you can specify how the message will be handled.

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Content Filters: Keyword filtering of messages containing specific words, phrases, and regular expressions in the subject line, message body and plain text attachments. Other types of attachments are not filtered. Messages containing blank headers can also be filtered. Content filtering is primarily used as a security measure to prevent data leaks in outgoing mail. Administrators create one or more content filters in an account, then activate filters on individual domains and outgoing IPs as needed.