Email Protection

Oscura's E-Mail Protection service is perfect for your business if you need protection from viruses and spam but don't want the expense of setting up your own e-mail filtering system. The service uses comprehensive virus and spam checking databases to block unwanted e-mails before they are delivered to you.

How does the service know if a message is spam?
Every e-mail message is considered separately and given a spam "score" - the higher the score the more likely the message is to be spam. The score is calculated using MX Logic's Stacked Classification FrameworkSM. This system aggregates several filtering techniques including statistical algorithms, heuristic algorithms, checksum calculations, and domain and end-user black lists.

Is all spam blocked?
The service will effectively remove approximately 98% of spam e-mail. The majority of this will be high scoring spam and will be immediately discarded. Messages that are considered spam but score lower than the top of the range will be tagged with [SPAM] in the subject and will be received by you. This ensures that valid messages are never discarded without trace.

How do I filter messages that have been tagged as spam?
Most e-mail packages will allow you to automatically filter tagged spam messages into a specified folder so there are not mixed with your general e-mail. This can be done using Outlook and Outlook Express - please call if you have any questions.

How does the services know if a message contains a virus?
Every message is checked using anti-virus technology from Sophos®. The database is updated every five minutes to ensure that if a new virus comes into circulation it will be quickly detected in your incoming e-mail.

What happens to e-mails that contain viruses?
The service will attempt to "clean" the message (remove the virus) - if successful the message will be delivered to you as normal, otherwise the message will be discarded.

This service blocks viruses, so do I still need a virus checker?
This service will prevent e-mails coming into your office through e-mail but will not protect against viruses from other sources (computer disks, infected machines within your network, viruses downloaded from websites, etc). Oscura recommend you maintain use of an anti-virus solution on your office network.

Do I need to change my e-mail settings when this service is provisioned?
No. Your account details for picking up your e-mails from Oscura will remain the same.

We use our own mail server and not Oscura "POP" accounts - can we use this service?
Yes. We can point your domain to our service and activate it based on a list of usernames you provide. This solution protects any number of your users before mail is delivered to your server.

Will this slow e-mail delivery down?
E-Mail that is protected using this service will be passed through a different mail server for scanning before delivery to our main e-mail server - this process will take a small number of seconds to complete and it is unlikely you will notice any difference in speed. However, the lack of spam and viruses in your e-mail will mean your mail will download substantially faster.

Find out more about E-Mail Protection

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