Spam is expensive and business need to take steps to combat it. Most anti-spam software nowadays incorporate several anti-spam techniques to manage the sheer influx of spam that hit email inboxes on a daily basis.
Anti-spam software would employ the following techniques such as wordlists, blacklists and whitelists, trend analysis and content filters such as Bayesian filtering. Wordlists include a lexicon of commonly used words in spam email such as ‘sex’ or ‘mortgage’. Blacklists contain IP addresses of known spam sources and therefore automatically block any mail sent from these servers, whilst whitelists contain the IP addresses of approved senders such as friends and family.
These lists are continuously being amended by users who report spam emails thus making blacklists more efficient. Trend analysis involves analyzing the email history of a person in order to establish a trend that will help determine whether emails are genuine or not thus reducing false positives. Learning or content filters, using techniques such as Bayesian filtering, examine the content of each email sent to and from an email address, and by learning word frequencies and patterns associated with genuine as well as unsolicited mail, can successfully separate the ham from the spam.
There are various anti-spam software products on the market such as GFI MailEssentials, Barracuda Networks, SpamTitan, Kaspersky, and others that offer a range of features that work together to control the spam problem. Whilst all quality anti-spam solutions can deliver an optimal solution, it is important to research what products are available on the market and ensure that the package suits your needs and organizational structure. Ideally, multiple anti-spam modules are deployed and that these together filter all known and future forms of spam; ease of configuration and support are also important factors to consider because you do not want to spend your time having to maintain the software – it should simply be installed and left to run and stop spam.
Selecting anti-spam software that is targeted towards your organization’s size and structure ascertains that the developers understand the needs of such a business and the software package would reflect this awareness. Similarly, when it comes to pricing structures it helps to seek software from vendors who are aware of their clients’ budgets and who can offer the best solution for the best price. Small and medium sized enterprises are a target market that do not need to use the complex and expensive software used by multi-national corporations because their IT needs and budgets differ. Opting for anti-spam solutions that are targeted specifically to their niche market will provide them with a equally good product for a fraction of the price and much easier to install, configure and run.
When evaluating anti-spam solutions and deciding which software to purchase, one must keep certain factors in mind involving the features that the software offers – multiple anti-spam modules mean multiple levels of protection and therefore a higher spam rate and a minimal number of false positives. Ease of install and configuration should also be deciding factors.