Knowledgebase

MailScanner FAQ

This is list of Frequently Asked Questions is intended to help you understand the MailScanner email scanning service.

• Will spam be deleted before I retrieve my email?
  
  By default no email is deleted from your mailbox unless you configure it to do so. Any email the Mailscanner system detects as spam will have the subject line modified and header records added (tagged) to indicate that the system thinks the email was spam.. You can configure Mailscanner in cPanel to automatically delete spam emails when you are confident that you are not losing required emails.
  
  
• Should I notify you when I receive email that has been incorrectly tagged as spam?
  
  No, the first thing you should do is go into cPanel and add the sender to your whitelist in the MailScanner configuration. But if you still have problems with incorrectly tagged email after that the open a support ticket and we will look into it for you.
  
  
• Will all of my email be tagged?
  
  No. email is scanned and then assigned a score based on the likelihood that it is spam. The scanner has thresholds (low scoring and high scoring spam) which is used to determine whether an email should be tagged as spam.
  
  
• Will all spam be detected?
  
  Not necessarily. No automated filter system is foolproof so there will be instances where legitimate email is tagged as spam and cases where spam is not tagged as spam.
  
  
• I don't need (spam/virus) checking, can I only have email scanned for one?
  
  Yes, you can configure the Mailscanner service to either scan for viruses, spam or both.
  
  
• Will viruses be deleted before I retrieve my email?
  
  Yes. All emails and file attachments will be scanned for viruses. If one is found, the virus is removed from the email before it is delivered to your mailbox, a text file attachment will be added to the email notifying you of the virus infection. Removed viruses and dangerous file attachments removed from email may be stored in a quarantine area on the server for 30 days. You can request the file from quarantine as described in the text file attachments, or preferably ask the sender to resend the attachment file as a zip archive.
  
  
• Will all viruses be detected?
  
  Regretably, no system can fully guarantee 100% detection, although nearly all infected files and dangerous file attachments should be detected by Mailscanner. Mailscanner also scans all email that you send through the server to help prevent accidental spreading of a virus yourself.
  
  
• Do I still need a virus scanner on my computer?
  
  Yes! Mailscanner can't guarantee that all email viruses will be detected, plus there are many other ways that your computer can become infected. You should always install an anti-virus solution on every computer and ensure that it is constantly kept up to date.
  
  
• How do I know whether and email has a virus or is a spam?
  
  The subject line of any email detected to be a problem will be prefixed with one of the following tags:
  
  
  • {Disarmed} - indicates that the email contained html tags that are considered dangerous, e.g. e.g. iframe, form tags, Script Tags, WebBugs, and Object Codebase Tags
    
  • {Virus?} - indicates that the email contained a virus and has had the attachment removed.
  • {Filename?} - indicates that the email contained a dangerous file attachment which has been removed.
  • {Spam?} - indicates that the email is likely to be spam - you should filter these emails into a separate folder in your email client.
  • {Definitely Spam?} - indicates that the email is almost definitely spam because it got a very high detection score - you should filter these emails into a separate folder in your email client.
    
    

  In addition, for technically minded clients additional headers are added to the email:

  • X-___________-VirusCheck: Found to be clean - indicates that the email passed the virus scanning tests.
  • X-___________-VirusCheck: Found to be infected - indicates that email email contained a virus which has been removed.
  • X-___________-SpamCheck: spam - indicates that the email is likely to be spam and contains information on how the score was reached.
  • X-___________-SpamScore: ssssss - indicates the spam score for the email. Each s represents 1 point, so sssss indicates a score of 5. The service has a default threshold of 5 for {Spam?} and 20 for {Definitely Spam?}
    
    
• 
  We advise against this as it is possible that legitimate email will be deleted and the sender will never know that you didn't receive it. We recommend filtering the email in your email client and placing it in a separate folder so that you can check through it in your own time. See the links at the top of this page for configuring email rules for the various email clients.
  
  If you're happy that email marked as {Spam?}, and/or more suitably {Definitely Spam?} you can then configure MailScanner to delete that email.
  
  Another alternative is to have all email marked as {Spam?}, and/or more suitably {Definitely Spam?} delivered to a specific email address. For example, spam@mydomain.com.
  
  
• How do I configure my email software to filter spam into a separate folder?
  
  You should create a separate folder in your email client called Spam. You should then create an inbox rule to place any email containing the strings {Spam?} or {Definitely Spam?} into that folder.
  
  
  
• What can I do to prevent receiving spam?
  
  Have a look at the self-help checklist here.
  
  
  
  

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