NoSpam Mail Protection FAQs
Implementation
What is involved in implementing the NoSpam Mail Protection service?
All that is necessary is a change in your DNS records, so that the 'MX' (mail exchanger) entries for your domain point to NoSpam Mail Protection's systems. After that change has been made, your email will be redirected through NoSpam Mail Protection’s filters before being automatically delivered to your mail server. Please also refer to our Quick Start Guide:
What is an MX record?
A mail exchanger (MX) record identifies the location of a domain’s mail server. The record directs computers on the Internet where to send email for a specific domain. Unfortunately, the record also informs spammers of the location of a domain’s mail server. By changing the MX record, a company can re-route its inbound email to NoSpam Mail Protection, which filters messages for spam and viruses and then delivers the clean email to the company’s mail server.
Is there any downtime necessary to implement NoSpam Mail Protection's service?
There is no downtime involved in implementing NoSpam Mail Protection. The set-up process is fast, and does not affect or delay your inbound or outbound email.
How soon will we start seeing results?
Typically, NoSpam Mail Protection begins working within a few hours of the DNS change, and often within a few minutes for a significant percentage of your inbound email. In order for all of your inbound messages to be filtered, the changes to your domain's MX record must fully propagate through the Internet. The (TTL) setting within your domain’s DNS specifies how quickly these changes should take effect; TTL values generally range from one hour to 24 hours. There is no interruption to your mail flow during any of this time.
Reliability and Server Back-Up
How reliable is NoSpam Mail Protection?
NoSpam Mail Protection's network and software architecture have been designed to handle both the rapidly growing volume of email and the heavy peak loads that are characteristic of SMTP traffic. NoSpam Mail Protection leverages multiple datacenters and has no single point of failure. Digital Canvas also provides guarantees uptime via a service level agreement that is part of all customer agreements.
Will we experience delays in receiving messages?
No. NoSpam Mail Protection typically processes a message in less than a second. Customers do not notice any delays in the delivery of email.
What happens if our mail server goes down?
In the event that a customer's mail server is inaccessible, the NoSpam Mail Protection system acts as a message queue so that emails will be delivered to the customer once the mail server is back online. NoSpam Mail Protection uses a timing algorithm to gracefully deliver those queued messages, to ensure that the customer’s mail server is not overwhelmed with a sudden barrage of inbound mail.
Additionally, the service includes full email continuity, so that customers can access and respond to any messages in queue, via the NoSpam Mail Protection web interface. With this capability, customers can continue using email even in the event of an emergency affecting their own email systems.
Security
How secure is the privacy of my email?
The NoSpam Mail Protection service does not affect your email's security. First of all, email itself is inherently not secure. Email messages are sent in clear, unencrypted plain text format across many networks and often through multiple mail servers before arriving at their destination. Essentially, NoSpam Mail Protection's service represents only an additional 'hop' on the Internet before email is delivered to a company's mail server.
NoSpam Mail Protection does not store or make copies of email messages, other than for a short period of time (i.e., for the length that a message may be stored in quarantine or queue). Additionally, there are stringent security measures in place to prevent any unauthorized physical or electronic access to the NoSpam Mail Protection systems.
Spam Detection and Handling
How does NoSpam Mail Protection determine which messages are spam?
NoSpam Mail Protection employs an extensive range of tests on incoming messages to detect spam. These include traditional, widely used approaches for spam detection such as message authenticity checks, header analysis, message signature analysis, databases of domain names and addresses used by spammers, and whitelists and blacklists. NoSpam Mail Protection also incorporates advanced, industry-leading proprietary techniques such as real-time message source analysis, graphics analysis, and user-based message profiling.
What happens to messages that are detected as spam?
You have several options for handling the spam messages detected by NoSpam Mail Protection. Junk messages can be (1) redirected to a NoSpam Mail Protection-hosted quarantine, (2) redirected to an alternative email address such as spam@yourcompany.com, (3) identified as spam in the subject line and delivered to the intended recipient, or (4) deleted. These options can be configured company-wide or on a per-user basis, and can be changed at any time.
What percentage of junk email does NoSpam Mail Protection catch?
The detection rate varies by customer and is based on the email traffic patterns for a given domain, and on NoSpam Mail Protection’s aggressiveness for that domain (customers can configure how aggressive the
filter should be). On average, NoSpam Mail Protection blocks over 98% of junk email and 100% of email-borne viruses.
What are whitelists and blacklists?
Whitelists are rules that allow messages to be delivered based on their 'from' email address or domain name, regardless of content. If you would like to guarantee that all messages from yourcustomer.com, for example, will not be flagged as spam regardless of what those messages contain, you can simply add that domain to your whitelist. Conversely, blacklists are rules that block messages based on the domain name or email address of the sender. Whitelists and blacklists can also be based on the source IP address of the sending mail server, the subject line of the message, or other characteristics of the message.
Virus Detection
Is NoSpam Mail Protection a substitute for our current antivirus software?
We do not recommend that customers eliminate their current virus protection, because viruses can be spread through means other than email. That said, over 90% of viruses are transmitted through email. As viruses have become more prevalent and more damaging, organizations increasingly are complementing their existing server- and workstation-based security with another layer of protection at their Internet gateway (as NoSpam Mail Protection provides) as an additional defense.
How often are NoSpam Mail Protection’s antivirus definitions updated?
Compatibility
Does NoSpam Mail Protection support Macintosh, Linux, or Unix environments?
Yes. NoSpam Mail Protection is a service rather than a product, and no software needs to be installed on your mail server or at workstations. Therefore, NoSpam Mail Protection supports any mail server, any email client, and any operating system(s) in use at a given organization.
Does NoSpam Mail Protection work with Lotus Notes?
Yes. NoSpam Mail Protection works seamlessly with any mail server that you are using. As a managed service, NoSpam Mail Protection is compatible with widely used programs such as Microsoft Exchange, Novell Groupwise, and Lotus Notes, as well as any other mail server software.
If my company hosts email at an external provider, will NoSpam Mail Protection work?
Yes. Many companies use an externally hosted email server, in addition to or in lieu of an internal mail server. NoSpam Mail Protection works correctly regardless of where a company's mail server or servers are located.
Integration
Do we need to integrate NoSpam Mail Protection with our existing mail server?
No - NoSpam Mail Protection will work successfully without any changes to an organization’s existing mail infrastructure and without any integration with that mail infrastructure. For ISPs and enterprise customers, we recommend that NoSpam Mail Protection’s user management and authentication functions be integrated with the customer’s infrastructure to reduce the need for any ongoing management of email accounts.
What options for integration does NoSpam Mail Protection provide?
NoSpam Mail Protection has been architected to integrate seamlessly with a wide array of infrastructures. This ensures that email addresses, aliases, and authentication information can be automatically synchronized between NoSpam Mail Protection and an organization’s internal system(s). In addition to integration via standard protocols such as LDAP and LDAPS, NoSpam Mail Protection offers a web service (available Q1 2010) that allows for programmatic domain and user management from virtually any application.
Billing
Are there any extra charges for integration?
No. NoSpam Mail Protection views integration as a means to ensure ongoing ease of management for customers, and all features related to integration are included in the standard pricing for the service.
Are there any set-up fees or implementation costs?
No. Since NoSpam Mail Protection is a managed service, there is no hardware or software to purchase and no one-time fees. There is simply a per-user price, based on the number of users who are enrolled for filtering.
How is my organization billed?
NoSpam Mail Protection is a subscription service. Customers generally are billed monthly, with pricing based on the number of email accounts using the service.
Do I have to pay for aliases?
No. Alias accounts are filtered for spam and viruses, but they are not billed.
