
- Overview
- How it Works
- Technical Details
- Screenshots
- Microsoft Outlook Integration
- Requirements
Overview
We created Spam Filter ISP to implement what many mail servers are missing: a spam filter gateway.
Spam Filter ISP's implementation is very simple and affordable. We offer a flat-price license, regardless on the number of users. Its use is recommended for ISPs and enterprises running their SMTP server, not end-users. SPAMFilter ISP is designed to be the spam filter gateway to your incoming SMTP server.
SpamFilter ISP has been helping companies stop spam since 2002. For larger organizations or internet service providers, our SpamFilter Enterprise allows to customize even further the filtering options for each of the domains being managed.Spam Filter ISP vs Spam Filter Enterprise feature comparison
Spam Filter ISP and SpamFilter Enterprise receive all emails addressed to your domain(s) and use several different filtering methods to detect spam in emails. Spam-free emails are then forwarded to your SMTP server(s) (see SPAM Filter's details here). End-users have web access to view their own quarantined emails. An optional anti-virus plugin is available to stop email viruses.
SpamFilter ISP's strength lies in the large number of filters that are applied to detect spam. Examples are:
- SFDB - SpamFilter's new proprietary distributed blacklist database, updated in real-time by all SpamFilter ISP installations throughout the world.
- SFDC - Our new centralized proprietary database contains hash signatures for all of the millions of emails received daily by SpamFilter installations in the world. We can thus determine in real-time if the email content hash matches spam already sent from other locations.
- Images embedded in emails are scanned for spam by Spam Filter, even if they are contained in PDFs.
- The sender's IP is listed in one or multiple DNS-based block lists.
- The Bayesian statistical analysis of the email suggests it is spam.
- The SPF (Sender Policy Framework) spam filter authenticates the sender to ensure their address is not fake.
- All of the URLs in the email are tested using the SURBL spam filter to check if they are used to host spammer's websites.
- Individual countries can be blocked by Spam Filter as wanted.
- The sender's DNS MX mail records are tested for a correct configuration.
- Email content is tested by the Spam Filter server against user-defined keywords (RegEx - Regular Expressions are supported by most filters).
Please see the details on "how SPAM Filter ISP works" for more information on our anti spam filter server and on all of our additional anti spam features.
How SpamFilter ISP Works
This latest filter is proving to be one of the most effective and accurate tools in stopping spam.
Anytime a company running SpamFilter ISP blocks an email, the sender's IP address is sent to our centralized SFDB database. This allows the SFDB filter to have access to a huge repository of spammer's IPs, updated in real-time by all the SpamFilter ISP installations in the world.
Our database analyzes this data in realtime, and will block IPs that have sent excessive amounts of spam to multiple locations in the world in the spam of the previous few minutes. This allows the SFDB to be extremely accurate, effective, and to start blacklisting IPs within minutes of them sending spam.
IP addresses from the database are automatically aged and removed from the database within 6-24 hours if they stop sending spam and/or viruses.
SFDC - SpamFilter Distributed Content Database
The SFDC (SpamFilter Distributed Content) filter is the latest filtering technology developed by LogSat Software.
When SpamFilter ISP receives an email, it will analyze the email's contents and will calculate a 20-byte hash to characterize it. We developed technology that is able to detect similar emails based on their contents. SpamFilter will assign the same hash to similar emails. When SpamFilter detects that emails with the same hash signature are originating from several different locations, it will report such anomaly to our centralized servers.
Our database analyzes, in real-time, this incoming flow of messages, and, based on their quantity, origin and destinations, is able to detect what signature hashes are generated by spam emails.
The technology behind the SFDC allows our centralized database to detect spam signatures regardless of the email's text and contents, but rather base it on the patterns used by spammers to deliver their emails.
Detection of spam signatures in images
SpamFilter ISP contains proprietary technology developed by LogSat Software that scans images embedded in emails for spam content.
We at LogSat Software were the first, in June 2007, to develop technology that allowed SpamFilter to scan images embedded in PDF files for spam content (the so-called PDF spams).
RBL and SURBL Blacklists
Spam Filter ISP can check any user-specified RBL blacklist to see if the sender's IP address is being blacklisted. Reliability can be improved by requiring an IP to be blacklisted by two or more RBL servers for it to be marked as spam.
Spam Filter will analyze all URLs specified in the email body itself, and will check any user-specified SURBL blacklist server to see if the URL in the email is being used to host spam-related websites.
Greylisting
Greylisting is not an anti-spam filter itself. More specifically, greylisting takes advantage of a required behavior by the RFCs that some anti-spam products use to greatly reduce the amount of spam received.
In the majority of the cases, when a "spam bot" computer is used to send spam, it will do so by sending huge amounts of emails in the fastest way possible. If a recipient's SMTP server does not respond, chances are that the spam bot will ignore such server and move on.
Luckily this behavior by spammers is in direct violation of the RFCs that dictate how email works. The RFCs require that, if an initial attempt to deliver an email fails, the sender must retry to send it.
Greylisting takes advantage of this by initially denying every connection attempt from an IP address. Only after a certain, small amount of time is the remote IP allowed to connect. If the sender is a spam bot, it is very likely that said IP will never retry to connect again, and so it will not even try to send spam. If the sender is a legitimate server, they will be following the RFC guidelines, and within a few minutes they will retry sending the email, which will be then delivered.
SpamFilter ISP v4 and higher support greylisting, and we at LogSat Software have made some changes in the implementation of this method to reduce the amount of delays that occur when a server connects for the first time to SpamFilter.
Bayesian statistical DNA fingerprinting
Spam Filter ISP performs statistical DNA fingerprinting on all incoming emails. This bayesian filter is self-learning, continuously analyzing your incoming traffic to improve its accuracy with time.
SSL and SMTP Authentication
Many mail servers lack support for SSL and SMTP Authentication. SpamFilter ISP supports both SSL and SMTP AUTH via Active Directory, LDAP, and Unix-style password files. If a user is authenticated, they will be able to bypass all filtering rules and use SpamFilter ISP as a relay to send their outgoing emails.
Administrators can then add support for SMTP Authentication (and SSL) if they have older mail servers that do not have these features.
SPF - Sender Policy Framework
SPF fights email address forgery and makes it easier to identify spam, worms, and viruses. SPF is an open source standard that is emerging as a solution to prevent spammers from using fake email addresses. Domain owners identify sending mail servers in DNS. SpamFilter ISP verifies the envelope sender address against this information, and can distinguish legitimate mail from spam before any message data is transmitted
Block Emails from User-Defined Countries
SpamFilter ISP is able to block emails being sent from any user-specified country. In addition, SpamFilter will track and record the number of email attempts made from all countries. This allows administrators to determine, visually, if there are any countries they do not wish to receive emails from.
...and dozens of more filters!
In addition to the filter specified in other sections of the website, SpamFilter ISP supports several more filters that can be used to detect spam.
A partial list is below.
- Local IP Blacklist - Our SPAM Filter server checks if the remote server's IP address matches an entry in your local IP blacklist file, the email is rejected.
- Local Domain Blacklist - The SPAM Filter gateway checks if the domain portion in the sender's email address is in your local domain blacklist file, the email is also rejected.
- Local FROM EMail Blacklist - The sender's email address is checked against your local list of blacklisted email addresses. If present, it is rejected.
- Local TO EMail Blacklist - The recipient's email address is checked against your local list of blacklisted email addresses. If present, it is rejected.
- Attachment Blocking - SPAM Filter can check emails for specific attachments or attachment extensions. If found, the email is rejected.
- Keyword Content Filtering - Our SPAM Filtering software can check email content and subject for specific keyword and/or phrases. If found, the email is rejected.
- Honeypot Emails - You can have a list of "honeypot" email addresses. Any email sent to an address in the list will cause the sender's IP to be blacklisted.
- Connections can be rejected if the remote server does not have a reverse DNS PTR entry.
- Spam Filter is able to check if the sender's MX DNS record is valid before accepting email.
- Refuse connections if there are too many spaces in the subject line.
- Max Recipients in single session - Use this setting to limit how many RCPT TO commands can be issued in a single session.
- Max Email Size - Incoming emails can be blocked if they exceed a certain size.
- Reject if Empty "Mail From" - If this option is checked SPAMFilter will reject all emails with an empty "Mail From" field.
- Reject if "Mail From" = "Mail To" - Reject all emails where the sender's email is the same as the recipient's email.
- Reject if "From Domain" = "To Domain" - SPAM Filter can reject all email where the sender's domain is the same as the recipient's domain.
- Tag Spam & Deliver - Allows to tag spam by adding the header "X-SF-SPAM:Y" to email classified as spam. The email is then forwarded to the destination SMTP server. This allows administrators to handle spam as they wish on the back-end.
- Tag Spam in Subject & Deliver - Allows to tag spam by prefixing the word SPAM: in the subject line of emails classified as spam. The email is then forwarded to the destination SMTP server. This allows administrators to handle spam as they wish on the back-end.
Technical Details
In order to use SPAMFilter ISP, our anti spam filter gateway, you need to configure your SMTP network to have SPAM Filter ISP handle all of your incoming email.
Following are several typical deployment scenarios that can be used as a starting point for your implementation.
SMTP servers directly connected to Internet
To implement our SPAM Filter server with minimal impact you would do the following.Configure SPAM Filter to listen on a different IP, for example on mail2.domain.com. This can be done by installing SPAMFilter either on a separate separate server or the same server provided it has multiple IP addresses assigned to it.Reconfigure the MX record to point to mail2.domain.com.Your SPAM Filter server will now be receiving all internet email and will then forward legitimate emails to your SMTP server at mail.domain.com. Your existing customers still have mail.domain.com for SMTP server in their email client configuration, nothing will have changed for them.

Single SMTP server with a single IP address directly connected to Internet
In this configuration the SPAM Filter gateway is installed on the same server as your SMTP software. The server only has one IP address available, SPAM Filter will need to be configured to listen on port 25 so it can accept email traffic. Your SMTP software will need to be reconfigured to listen on a different port, for example port 26. SPAM Filter will then forward clean emails to your SMTP server on port 26.All your email clients will need to be reconfigured so that their "Outgoing SMTP server" now points to your SMTP server on port 26. Alternatively, you may choose to let your email clients relay thru SPAMFilter. Please note that in order to do so, you will need to configure IP whitelists in SPAM Filter to specify the IPs from which your clients can relay from (note - there are no changes needed to clients if they connect to an Exchange server).

SMTP servers behind Firewall This is one of the simplest configurations to implement.Install our SPAM Filtering software on a standalone server.Reconfigure the firewall so that it routes the external IP address to the IP assigned to SPAM Filter.The SPAM Filter server will now be receiving all internet email and will then forward legitimate emails to your SMTP server.

Single SMTP multihomed server behind Firewall
Configure SPAM Filter to listen on a different IP than your SMTP server. This can be done by assigning additional IP address to the server.Reconfigure the firewall so that it routes the external IP address to the IP assigned to SPAM Filter.The SPAM Filter gateway will now be receiving all internet email and will then forward legitimate emails to your SMTP server.

Single SMTP server behind Firewall
In this configuration our SPAM Filtering software is installed on the same server as your SMTP software. The server only has one IP address available, SPAMFilter should be configured to listen on a port other than 25 so it does not conflict with your SMTP Server, for example port 26. Your SMTP software will not need be reconfigured.Reconfigure the firewall to perform port mapping so that it routes the external SMTP traffic from port 25 to port 26 on the IP assigned to SPAM Filter.If the firewall does not support port translation, this configuration can't be implemented. Please refer to the "Single SMTP server with a single IP address directly connected to Internet" example above for an alternate solution.

SpamFilter ISP and Spam Filter Enterprise will run and start blocking spam right out-of-the-box with their default settings. All you need to provide is the list of email domains you control, the SMTP server(s) where clean emails should be forwarded to, and the DNS server(s) to use for queries.
Spam Filter can be configured very easily, with dozens of filtering options to satisfy even the most unusual customer needs. Below we include some screenshots that show some of the filtering options and features that are available.
Microsoft Outlook Integration
For corporations using Microsoft Outlook email clients, a very nice feature is the ability to display a "SpamFilter" folder within the Outlook client itself. This web-enabled folder then allows the end users to see their quarantined emails directly within their Outlook client without the need of an external web browser. From Outlook they can then view/deliver any emails in the quarantine.
Microsoft Outlook Configuration
Configuring Microsoft Outlook to display SpamFilter's quarantined emails is very simple.
To begin, the user needs to register for access via the quarantine website to receive their password. Once the password is received, all that is required is to create a new folder within the Outlook client, and then point this folder to the URL used to access the quarantine area. In the URL the user should manually enter their email address and their password as can be seen from the screenshots below. This only needs to be done once. From the on, they will be able to view their spam by simply clicking on their "SpamFilter" folder.
Spam Filter ISP System Requirements
- Software - Operating System: Spam Filter ISP will run on Microsoft Windows NT4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003.
- Hardware: Spam Filter is very CPU and RAM efficient. Server requirements will depend on the email traffic. VMWare virtual servers are also supported.
Sample hardware configurations are as follows: - For a server handling 20,000 emails/day, a 500MHz CPU and 512MB of RAM is the minimum recommended.
- For a server handling 200,000 emails/day, a dual-core 2GHz Xeon CPU and 4GBMB of RAM is the minimum recommended.
- For a server handling 2 million emails/day, two dual-core 3GHz Xeon CPUs and 4GBMB of RAM is the minimum recommended.
- SpamFilter ISP - Optional quarantine database: Microsoft SQL Server 7 and higher, MySQL 4.0 and higher, Oracle 8 and higher, Microsoft Access 2000 and higher.
- SpamFilter Enterprise - One of the following database servers is required: Microsoft SQL Server 7 or higher - MySQL 5 or higher (Unix / Windows / Mac are supported MySQL platforms)












