What are Email Spam Filters and Why are they Necessary?

Have spam emails ever cluttered your inbox? We know the answer is most likely a yes, since junk mails are not rare to sight. These junk emails are bearable unless they start getting into your daily activities and disrupting your workflow. This puts forth the question,

How to stop spam emails?

A recent study shows that one in every 6 emails is spam. Now imagine manually filtering out these spam emails out of your mailbox, sounds like a task, doesn’t it? To the relief of users, most email hosting services are equipped with email spam filters that keep the user’s inbox free from junk emails.

What is an email spam filter?

Ever witnessed that one junk folder in your email hosting server where most of the spam mails end up? Well, all thanks to an email spam filter, users can avoid spam emails from getting into inboxes. But what is an email spam filter?
An email spam filter is a tool used in email hosting software that churns out unsolicited, unwanted, and virus-infested emails and keeps such emails off of the user’s inbox. This protects the user from any potential cyber threat and facilitates smooth communications and workflow.

How does the email spam filter work?

Now the next important questions are how do email spam filters work? Andwhat triggers the email spam filter?
The answer to these questions, however, is not that apparent. Email spam filters work on certain defined rules which can be different for different spam filters and email hosting servers. Broadly, these spam filters look for common trigger words and evaluate emails on different algorithms before bifurcating the important emails and the spam emails.
For a better comprehension of how email spam filters work, it’s important to understand the different types and categories of email filters.

What are the different categories of email spam filters?

Based on where they exist in the emailing process, email spam filters can be divided into three broad categories,

Gateway spam filter: A gateway email spam filter is typically physical hardware that is located behind the firewall of a network in an on-premise server rather than being stored in the cloud. This mail sets up a security gate on the network, prohibiting malicious and spam emails from entering the email server.

Hosted spam filters: A hosted email spam filter is based on the cloud, unlike the gateway email spam filter. This email spam filter works similarly to the gateway spam filter, stopping spam emails from getting into the system network.

A major point of difference between a hosted spam filter and a gateway spam filter is that the hosted filter, as against the gateway filter, is hosted by a third party and allows the benefit of quick updates and the latest technology without additional effort.

Desktop spam filters: Desktop email spam filters are installed locally on the computer, generally by the user and facilitate easy configuration,and are custom to the user’s needs.

What are the types of email spam filters?

Based on the working standards, email spam filters can be categorized into five types,

Content Filter: The content email spam filter looks for trigger words and information that is commonly used in junk emails. By evaluating the words and language used in the body and subject line of the email, a content email spam filter pushes out potential spam emails from the user’s inbox and sends them to the junk folder.

Blacklist Filter: Blacklist filters work by filtering out the emails on the basis of the sender’s reputation and domain used. For a sender who has been marked spam by multiple users, the blacklist emails spam filter will prohibit the emails sent by such a sender from getting into the inbox of users. Individuals and organizations can also use their own blacklists to avoid wasteful and malicious emails.

Header Filter: Header email spam filters use Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to evaluate the source of the email and filter out any suspicious email addresses. This filter assesses e-mail headers for the information in the header about the recipient, sender, and subject fields displayed by the email browsers.

Rule-Based Filter: In the case of a rule-based spam filter, the users can define custom rules and standards, non-adherence to which can send the emails straight into the spam box. This way, the users can filter out and protect their inboxes from targeted emails and senders.

Language Filter: A language email spam filter simply filters out the emails that are not in the language of the user and keeps the emails from other regions off the user’s inbox.

Why do you need an email spam filter?

An email spam filter is a necessity for every individual and organization operating emailing activities on a regular base. An average person roughly receives 100-120 emails a day, out of which an average of 80% of emails are spam. At its very root, keeping your communications flow smooth requires a reliable email spam filter.

Digging deeper into this topic, let’s discuss the reasons that make email spam filters an absolute necessity.

Security
Out of all the emails received by an individual throughout the day, the possibility of a phishing attack or cyber threat is never zero. With the benefits of email spam filters, the security risk can be reduced since the user gets in hand the emails that have gone through various spam checks. Moreover, these email spam filters throw out malware, malicious, and virus-infested emails and protect user security.

Time-Saving
Let us go back to the emailing stats we discussed at the beginning of this section. Having to filter out the 20% important emails out of the average 80% clutter does seem time-consuming. This can be of greater concern if these stats are put into an organization’s emailing communications. By filtering out the important emails and sending to the spam box the junk emails, an email spam filter saves time for the user and keeps the business communications going by streamlining the user inbox.

Increased Productivity
Along the lines of the time-saving benefit of email spam filters, these tools facilitate increased productivity of the user by keeping away unwanted emails. As mentioned in the types of email spam filters, in certain cases the users can set up standards for email spam division. By keeping away the emails that might distract or waste the time of the employees, these email spam filters can keep the inbox of employees clean and facilitate increased productivity.

Get 100% spam protection with WeMail

Now that you know the working of the email spam filter and its need for email operations, now the big question is, what is the best email spam filter?

Start with asking yourself what you seek in an email spam filter. Most likely, security, effectiveness, and cost efficiency will be a part of your list in addition to various other features. So where can you find a tool that is equipped with all these advanced email spam protection features?

WeMail is the answer. With advanced spam protection tools, WeMail by Webtel is a reliable solution for the spam protection requirements of your organization. Discussed below are the key features of WeMail’s advanced spam protection tool,

Inbox Security: By enabling automated incident response, WeMail’s anti-spam tool eliminates the efforts of investigating and removing target phishing attacks.

Threat Intelligence: Smart and integrated spam protection tool filters out unique IP addresses, phishing, and malware cyber threats in a secure and timely manner.

Threat Detection: Web threat detection engines offered by WeMail are easily integrated into the security of the server and keep the user’s inbox spam free.

Spam Check: The advanced spam detection tools of WeMail filter out spam mails with the assistance of 11 specific filters such as domain key check, DKIM record check, reserve DNS evaluation, SPF check, and so on.

RBL Check: RBL or DNS-based blacklist is an anti-spam tool that checks the servers' IP addresses against real-time blacklists. WeMail makes use of 27 RBL filters to keep junk mail out from the user’s inbox based on the sender’s domain or IP blacklist detected.

Greylist Filters: With the use of 1253 greylisting filters, WeMail protects the user from any possible spam emails and phishing attacks.

Virus Quarantine and Spam Quarantine: Quarantine refers to isolating virus and spam-infested emails in a separate storage area and prevent it from contaminating other files. WeMail’s integrated anti-spam features make use of virus and spam quarantine to avoid exposure to corrupted emails.

In addition to advanced spam protection, WeMail by Webtel offers an array of smart features custom build to facilitate business emailing processes. Listed below are the prime features offered by WeMail,

Privacy: WeMail keeps the email data privacy of users protected with the help of advanced tools and features, making WeMail a reliable email hosting solution.

Accessibility: WeMail ensures seamless synchronization of multiple business email ids, over all devices, hence making accessibility easy.

Branding: By providing a customized email domain address, WeMail enhances your business brand image and elevates your business communications.

To know more about WeMail advanced email hosting solution, visit: WeMail- An Advanced Business eMail Hosting Solution