Ways to Customize FilterPoint
> Home       > How filterpoint works       > Features & Pricing       > ROI Calculator       > Customer Login       > Contact Us

While the FilterPoint service is designed to be a "sign up and forget" service, you can configure and fine-tune it if and whenever you like. Using the Control Panel, you can configure a number of parameters.

FilterPoint can auto-reject "suspicious" emails before they are even accepted for further evaluation. We call this Auto-Rejecting. Please note that Auto-Rejecting occurs "at the gate" before mail is even processed by the rules you establish in the "What to do with Mail" section. Any messages that are mail rejected cannot be redirected or forwarded -- they were never accepted in the first place.

FilterPoint always refuses these types of messages:

• Messages from servers falsely claiming to belong to FilterPoint.com
• Messages with an unknown domain in envelope return address (i.e., the message cannot be bounced)
• Messages from servers that attempt to dump mail without waiting for proper replies
• Messages which match some easily identified virus signatures
• Messages from dialup addresses at ISPs that identify them as ineligible for sending email.

In addition, there are various Auto-Reject Levels available to you.

None

This block level adds no additional blocking features for your entire domain.

Low (recommended)

This auto-reject level will only block remote servers that are known to have open relays or open proxies . This is the setting recommended by FilterPoint.

Medium

Medium auto-reject will do everything that the low level will do, plus it blocks servers used by well-known professional spammers and rejects forgeries of commonly faked domains, such as aol.com and yahoo.com. This is very effective, but on rare occasions results in some legitimate mail being blocked. This setting is usually safe to use.

High

High auto-reject adds to the medium level validation of incoming mail against several strict technical checks which most spam sending software will fail. Because of the vast number of poorly-configured mail servers out on the Internet, this may block legitimate mail. Use this setting with caution.

Messages that pass your defined level of blocking will be passed to the filtering system.

Whitelists/Blacklists

One person's email may be another person's SPAM. It's also really embarrassing to reject or discard emails from your valued clients. FilterPoint offers whitelists and blacklists to assist you in customizing the SPAM filtering for your organization.

A whitelist is a list of domains or addresses that should be accepted regardless of content. This might include your clients, partners, vendors, or family.

A blacklist is a list of domains or addresses that should never be accepted period. Put in whatever domains you never want to receive mail from.

The sender's address of incoming email is checked for inclusion in whitelists or blacklists before the message is ever checked for content.

SPAM tagging

Sometimes it's better to observe incoming email for a while to help you decide where to set SPAM thresholds. You have several options here:

• On the FilterPoint Control Panel, set Put Spam Score in Header to Yes and Kill Spam Over Score to Never. On incoming emails, you will be able to examine the mail headers of the messages and see what their SPAM score is.
  • How do I see the SPAM score of an incoming message in Outlook?

  • How do I see the SPAM score of an incoming message in Groupwise?

• On the control panel, set Put *SPAM* in Subject to Yes. This will allow your users to make a quick scan of subject lines and decide which emails to open first and/or discard.

Saving Your Hide -- false positives

Occasionally, FilterPoint will block a legitimate message from a sender. This is what we call a "false positive." Since FilterPoint doesn't keep killed SPAM and you don't want to lose the message, here's what you can do beforehand:

On your email system, establish an account called "SpamBucket" (e.g., spambucket@example.com). This account will be used to receive email killed by FilterPoint through the content filtering system. If it's the only redirection address established for your domain and it's set on the catch-all address section of the FilterPoint Control Panel, all killed email will be sent here. Here are some tips for managing the spambucket account on your email system:

• Setup the account so that multiple people (e.g., receptionists, admins, etc.) can regularly access this account for the convenience of the rest of your staff.

  • How do I proxy into the SpamBucket account in Outlook?

  • How do I proxy into the SpamBucket account in GroupWise?

• Whomever checks this account can forward wanted emails to the intended recipients. (Good advice: consider whitelisting the senders of these emails if they continue to have their email identified as SPAM).

• Be careful! This is your spambucket -- it may have highly graphic, explicit and/or inappropriate messages in it. Make sure that the personnel who review it are aware of this and that you have procedures in place to protect yourself from this.

Please note that for users with confidentiality requirements, you can establish individual spambucket accounts for any user by creating an "Override Address" for them in the FilterPoint Control Panel, or configure their email client to file flagged spam into a special mail folder (be sure to set the "kill" level to Never).

There are three ways you can setup FilterPoint recipient addressing to work for you.

Simple

When you first setup your account, we will put one "catch-all" entry into your Address table. It will be @yourdomain.com (or whatever your domain is). You only have to visit the settings in the Mail Disposition once (or accept the defaults), and you're off and running!

How does it work? All email sent to your domain will be subject to the Mail Disposition rules established for this single entry.

Hint: This is great for a small domain with few users with similar needs/wishes and/or little time for administrative maintenance.

Advantages:

• Very simple to configure and start using right away! The defaults will work well for 90% of the domains out there.

Disadvantages:

• Your entire domain is subject to the same set of Mail Disposition rules, so your are limiting your flexibility.

• Since there is no validation by FilterPoint's system of valid usernames, any messages accepted for delivery will be forwarded to your mail server. In the event of a dictionary attack on your domain, your system will be flooded with undeliverable mail (messages sent to users that don't exist in your mail system).

MicroManager

If you're a real stickler for detail, you can remove the generic "catch-all" account and place individual user names into your Override Addresses list (e.g., JonSmith@yourdomain.com, smithJ@yourdomain.com, j.s.smith@yourdomain.com)

Hint: This is great for organizations that want to manage different users' needs with different levels of SPAM protection.

Advantages:

• Ultimately customizable for each user's preferences for SPAM protection.

• Best protection against dictionary attacks since only mail for the addresses listed in the Override Addresses list will be forwarded to your mail system.

Disadvantages:

• Requires regular maintenance when users are added or removed from your own mail system. There should always be one entry in FilterPoint's Override Addresses table for each mailbox in your mail system.

• You must maintain multiple whitelists and blacklists for each user; this can create significant administrative overhead for you.

Hybrid

This option takes advantage of the best of the Simple and Micromanager methods shown above.

Hint: FilterPoint recommends this for all but the most basic needs. This is your best bet for a combination of ease of maintenance and per-user control.

Advantages:

• By maintaining the "catch-all" entry, you can establish preferences and whitelists/blacklists for your whole organization and still maintain special Mail Dispositions for users that have special needs.

• Less administrative overhead than the MicroManager method

Disadvantages:

• More administrative work than the Simple method

• In the event of a dictionary attack on your domain, your system will be flooded with undeliverable mail (messages sent to users that don't exist in your mail system).

If you're using FilterPoint, there's an excellent chance that the original SPAM email will not be forwarded to your mail system, so your risk is lowered. When deciding which administration method you want to use on your FilterPoint's Mail Handling page, there are choices that you can make to further reduce your risk against a dictionary attacks (see MicroManager method).