Do spam filters work?

Even though it is estimated that 90 billion spam emails are sent worldwide every day, the use of spam filters is still questioned.

The term spam filter is also known as anti-spam software. This piece service (hardware, software, or both) analyzes your incoming email and uses a series of rules to decide whether the email you are receiving is legitimate or not. Consequently, the answer to the question of whether spam filters work or not is yes. How good they work depends on the spam filter implemented. Some spam filters work better than others.

A decent spam filter will block about 95% of spam through filtering ‘buzz’ words referring to adult content, medical supplies, weight loss supplements, etc. Additionally, filtering uses rules based on a “blacklist”, font size, font color, block skin colored images, etc.

Another feature of most spam filters is virus detection and removal. This is done on both inbound and outbound messages. Any viruses that are found are then either deleted or quarantined. This feature is especially important to business owners whose reputation could be at risk if viruses are spread through to clients messages using their outbox.

It is a cat and mouse game and many spammers modify words that have been “blacklisted” by using incorrect spelling, inappropriate spacing and replacing letters with numbers on words that they know would not get through a spam filter.

A drawback with local spam filters - spam and/or virus email resides on your server. When your mail server (i.e. Microsoft Exchange) receives incoming email your server’s work load and Internet bandwidth usage increases. Spam email is received and filtered throughout the day causing slowdowns and loss of computer productivity. An email residing on your server containing a virus can cripple your entire network in a matter of minutes.

INFINETWORK offers an email filtering solution that prevents infected email and spam from ever getting to your server or using your Internet bandwidth resulting in increased productivity and virtually decreasing downtime due to this issue.