AntiVirus & AntiSpam

HastNet uses AntiVirus and AntiSpam pre-screening in our own mail servers and most of those provided in our Virtual Hosting platforms. We also offer the same service as an add on to clients with their own mail servers. Wherever the mail server is located, the absence or poor performance of pre-screening may see users being overwhelmed by spam or worse.

Pre-Screening inspects incoming e mail message streams and filters out highly suspicious ones before they are delivered. A combination of techniques are employed in the pre-screening process.

Blacklists. Community shared and public Blacklists build and maintain a hit list of known spamming or malware sources. Any mail from any server on these Blacklists is rejected at source. In parallel with this a local client specific Blacklist (and its opposite, a Whitelist) is maintained with the same purpose.

Filters. A library of traces and signifiers is built up and maintained and all mails awarded a score depending on how many flags are raised. This mark is then compared to an adjustable threshold and the mail accepted or junked accordingly.

Smart Filters. An additional Bayesian filtering layer can be added. These Smart Filters are educated in real time by User response to received mail, signalling back to the server any mails which get through Blacklist and standard filter checks, but which the user feels should nevertheless be rejected.

Outgoing Mail. We routinely scan outgoing mail as well. Alerts can indicate a local infection of some kind.