SPAM Email Filtering

There is no single software or single process that can successfully eliminate a significant amount of SPAM on its own. As SPAM and online threats evolve, the gradual mail analytics become more important and the efficient implementation of those processes becomes all the more critical. To offer you an example: as we learn about more SPAM tactics and patterns, we perform more checks against the sender, recipient, email, attachments, context, filenames and text patterns. As the scope of those checks grow, so does the possibility of a delay to the message delivery due to processing. ExchangeDefender employs a comprehensive mail analytic check which runs thousands of message comparisons simultaneously, reducing average message processing time to a fraction of a second.
Off-premise SPAM scanning solutions have a unique advantage of seeing mail trends across a large network in real-time. Because most SPAM is sent to millions of recipients, large networks such as ExchangeDefender can detect SPAM based on statistical models alone. Quick replication of SPAM definitions and real-time IP reputation allow the ExchangeDefender network to protect users from SPAM and zero day threats better than appliances that are updated on a set schedule. Unmanaged appliances and software that receive definition updates from a central location usually have a lag of at least an hour or even a day or more, exposing users to real-time threats.

ExchangeDefender, through proprietary technology, can predict the type of message it is about to receive by analyzing only the SMTP conversation and the IP reputation of the sending host. For example, if the sending server does not even wait for the welcome banner to start the SMTP conversation, it is obvious that the message will be SPAM. Furthermore, after the same server has been the origin of 10,000 SPAM messages over the past hour, it is pretty clear that the next message will also likely be SPAM. ExchangeDefender will not automatically drop these messages, but every piece of the SPAM criteria can lead to a score that qualifies it as junk.
ExchangeDefender performs hundreds of checks before the SMTP connection is even established. Doing so helps reduce the amount of mail you have to review for potential junk content.

ExchangeDefender is proud to be 100% based on established RFC standards. RFC standard compliance is very important to the timely and reliable delivery of legitimate mail. We do not use any greylisting technology. We do not enforce extensive delays between SMTP commands, and we do not use any "tricks".
Reliance on established standards is crucial to timely delivery and the ability to effectively troubleshoot mail flow issues with remote servers.

ExchangeDefender is one of the few providers that quarantine junk mail instead of rejecting it outright. This is valuable for a number of reasons, primarily because it never takes the control out of your hands. Furthermore, quarantined mail can always be read on demand and released by the user if it is indeed legitimate, saving the time that would otherwise have to involve system administrator and a remote sender resending the message.
ExchangeDefender does not use any message delaying technology. While we understand the potential benefits behind greylisting, they are absolutely unacceptable in a business environment where timely delivery is important. Furthermore, with more and more misconfigured and overloaded mail servers, it is in our customers' interest to accept mail as fast as posssible and process it further internally. With our processes you can expect the messages to reach you in the fastest way possible.

Because ExchangeDefender accepts network connections on your behalf, we are the ones taking on the network attacks from hackers and botnets. We have a very redundant infrastructure with a ton of bandwidth and can withstand a large-scale DDoS because of the number of systems that accept inbound mail, something that is impossible to do with a single appliance or a single server-based firewall.
In addition, our networks are in constant sync and can detect the botnet membership by the type of behavior and content being sent over time from the remote systems. Because we have so many points of entry we have a larger sample size and a more accurate way to deny connections to known botnets.
Finally, spammers live and die on their reputation. ExchangeDefender, due to its size, knows how many messages it receives from smaller mail servers or even servers on cable & DSL networks- many of which are residential. So when a server goes from sending a few dozen messages to a few thousand messages a day, we can stop them in their tracks.

The key to effectively eliminating SPAM and unwanted content is being adaptive to the mail flow - as it happens. One of the most important features of ExchangeDefender is its ability to adapt to the changing mail flows, hour to hour, minute to minute, second to second. It is estimated that over 25% of the hosts on the Internet are a part of a botnet or have been compromised in some way. Adapting to those trends and filtering out messages based on topology maps is crucial to eliminating messages because RBLs, honeypot traps and SPAM rules do not work against zero day SPAM or other threats that are just temporary but still impact your organizations productivity.
ExchangeDefender can scale and respond in real-time as well as adapt to the emerging threats long before they reach your inbox.