Exchange - where email goes to die - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Exchange - where email goes to die

Gozinbulx: Feb 19, 2004

Whats the current go-to Spam filtering software for exchange?

# ¿ Oct 15, 2014 21:20

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 16:39

Gozinbulx: Feb 19, 2004

Hey guys, im pretty much ready to throw my exchange server into the ocean. Way too many problems and so many vital business communications not reaching people in time/at all. I need something hosted/cloud/set it forget it.

What do you guys recommend for someone who wants to be done with managing their own mail system, but keep their domain name at the end of the address?

# ¿ Jan 13, 2015 21:14

Gozinbulx: Feb 19, 2004

I *think* we'd be totally fine with GApps, especially since most peoples personal emails are Gmail already. I was just afraid it was considered a bad service by experts/people who should know this stuff. It's not? It's well regarded among you guys?

# ¿ Jan 14, 2015 04:24

Gozinbulx: Feb 19, 2004

I am currently using Xeams spam filtering for our exchange server. Not only is it a lousy spam filter (it filters things from people which it previously accepted and lets through exact copies of things it blocked, makes no sense) but more importantly, the way it does this is by giving you an email at the end of the day (literally, 12 am) of all the stuff it filtered. So basically long after critical emails where lost to the filter and business has been already affected, it kindly gives you a report of all the crap its done.

My question: what is a spam filtering solution that actually puts spam in the spam folder of each persons mailbox? I know this is super obvious but I thought I would come here and get a solid recommendation.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 17:28

Gozinbulx: Feb 19, 2004

Will Styles posted:

A spam filter solution should have a quarantine option, where messages that are quarantined can be accessed by the user and released to the mailbox if needed. All the big names I've seen have this capability so if you switch to something else I would look for something that has this type of functionality (Xeams may even have it). However this would require your users to log into the spam filter to view their quarantined messages and release them if needed.

As far as a spam filtering appliance making items go into a specific folder on your mailbox, I'm not aware of a solution that can do that right off the bat. You could configure the spam filter to put a specific header in the email like 'x-spam' then use a transport rule to give that message a high scl which should do what you want. However if you're not wanting your spam filter to actually block mail from reaching the mailbox what's the point of the spam filter?

Maybe I'm not explaining it well but you know how Gmail has a spam folder? If you were supposed to get something and don't receive it, you check the spam folder quickly to see if it got caught. That's what I want. No logging into a separate system, no waiting for a wrap up email at the end of the day. Outlook has a junk email folder built it. I want to actually use it.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 18:13

Gozinbulx: Feb 19, 2004

Gyshall posted:

If you're still running a spam filter/gateway on your local servers in the Year of Our Lord 2016, you're doing it wrong.

What is the alternative? I'm sorry I'm so ignorant but the exchange server was until recently one of the few things I was not in charge of and now I'm trying to get a handle on it.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 18:14

Gozinbulx: Feb 19, 2004

The Electronaut posted:

And he just told you a possible way of doing it.

Yes absolutely, I was responding more to the "why would you do it". I thought it was pretty standard to have a junk mail folder that you would check in case something that was important was marked as spam but maybe not.

myron cope posted:

All of our external email goes through MXLogic (until we switch to Mimecast) and they do the filtering.

So what happens if an important email gets caught in the filter and marked as spam? Does it send it to another folder you can check?

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 18:24

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 16:39

Gozinbulx: Feb 19, 2004

Will Styles posted:

Comparing to Gmail, they use Postini (or they used to not sure if they still do) to block obvious spam messages/phishing/virus/etc. then anything that gets passed that but still looks sort of suspicious will be placed in your spam folder. So there are things sent to your Gmail account that never reach you, and in fact you have no way to see what these messages were. For the most part you don't care because it's usually obvious spam/virus/etc.

Exchange solutions also use a spam filter (appliance or hosted) to do the same thing postini does to block the obvious stuff. Exchange/Outlook will then use a spam confidence level (SCL) to determine whether or not a message should be put in the junk mail folder or not. It's basically the same setup, however you have visibility and some manner of control into what is actually being blocked at the highest level.

I think the bigger thing here is to know that you can and should configure your spam filter so that messages that are super important get through. This is where whitelisting comes in handy.

This is all very helpful, thank you.

About whitelisting though, unfortunately we work in a business where emails from unknown people come in all the time that we need to see, ie people who we've never received messages from before so we couldn't possibly have whitelisted them in the past.

I think the SCL mechanism you described is probably what I'm looking for. Thank you.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 18:57

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