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SecurityGateway for Email Servers v9.0

Navigation: Security > Anti-Spam

Message Scoring

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SecurityGateway calculates a Message Score for each message based on a number of tests it performs while processing the message. The score is effectively a "spam score" used to determine the likelihood that a message is spam. Heuristics and Bayesian, DNSBL, DKIM Verification, and many other Security options can be optionally set to modify the Message Score. Use the options on this page to designate the actions that will be taken when a message's score exceeds certain thresholds. You can set thresholds for tagging messages as spam, quarantining them, or rejecting them during the SMTP session. You can also set SecurityGateway to exclude messages from the Message Scoring restrictions when they are from whitelisted senders, authenticated sessions, or are outbound messages. The Message Scoring options can be set both globally and for specific domains.

Configuration

Enable actions based upon final message score

By default, SecurityGateway will assign a score to each message and then take action based upon that score, according to scoring thresholds designated below. Clear this checkbox if you do not wish to base any actions on the Message Score.

Reject messages with score greater or equal to [xx]

By default, any message with a final score of 12.0 or greater will be rejected during the SMTP session. You can adjust this value if you choose, or you can disable the option completely if you do not wish any message to be rejected because of its score.

Quarantine messages with score greater or equal to [xx]

Messages scoring 5.0 or greater will be quarantined by default. This value can be adjusted, or you can disable the option completely if you do not wish to quarantine messages based on their message scores. If you are also using the "Reject messages with score greater or equal to [xx]" option above, then messages scoring between this quarantine threshold and that rejection threshold above will be quarantined. Messages scoring at or above the rejection threshold will be refused.

Add subject tag to messages with score greater or equal to [xx]

Click this option if you wish to add some text to a message's subject when its final score is greater than or equal to this value. The default value is 5.0, but the option is disabled by default.

Subject tag:

When the "Add subject tag to messages..." option above is enabled, this is the text that will be added to a message's Subject when its score is at or above the required threshold. The default text added by this option is: "*** SPAM ***".

There are a number of other places within SecurityGateway where you can optionally add text to the Subject header. For example, the DNS Blacklists (DNSBL) and URI Blacklists (URIBL) pages also have this option. When the designated text in these options matches, the text will only be added to a message's subject once even if that message meets the criteria under each option. If, however, you change the text in one or more places then that customized text will be added as well. So, for example, if you set the text under all three of these options to "*SPAM*" then that text would only be added to the subject once, regardless of whether or not it matched the criteria under more than one of the options. But, if you changed the URIBL optional text to "*URI blacklisted*" and it matched the criteria under that option and the others then the subject would have both "*SPAM*" and "*URI blacklisted*" added to it.

Exclusions

Exclude messages from whitelisted senders

Messages are excluded by default from the Message Scoring restrictions when they are from whitelisted senders. Clear this checkbox if you do not wish to exempt whitelisted senders from Message Scoring.

Exclude messages from authenticated sessions

By default any message being sent over an authenticated SMTP session is excluded from the Message Scoring restrictions. Uncheck this box if you do not wish to exclude these messages.

Exclude messages from domain mail servers

Click this checkbox if you wish to exclude from the Message Scoring restrictions all messages coming from your domain mail servers. This option is disabled by default.

Exceptions - Domains

If you select a specific domain in the "For Domain:" drop-down list box at the top of the page when configuring these settings, that domain will be listed here after saving the settings. Click the View/Edit link for the corresponding domain to review or edit its Message Scoring settings, or click Reset to reset the domain's settings to the default Global values.