About Spamblocker; Spamblocker Requirements - Watchguard Firebox X15 User Manual

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spamBlocker

About spamBlocker

Unwanted email, also known as spam, fills the average inbox at an astonishing rate. A large volume of spam
decreases bandwidth, degrades employee productivity, and wastes network resources. The WatchGuard
spamBlocker option uses industry-leading pattern detection technology from Commtouch to block spam at
your Internet gateway and keep it from getting to your email server.
Commercial mail filters use many methods to find spam. Blacklists keep a list of domains that are used by
known spam sources or are open relays for spam. Content filters search for key words in the header and body
of the email message. URL detection compares a list of domains used by known spam sources to the
advertised link in the body of the email message. However, all of these procedures scan each individual email
message. Attackers can easily bypass those fixed algorithms. They can mask the sender address to bypass a
blacklist, change key words, embed words in an image, or use multiple languages. They can also create a chain
of proxies to disguise the advertised URL.
spamBlocker uses the Recurrent-Pattern Detection (RPD) solution created by Commtouch to detect these
hard-to-find spam attacks. RPD is an innovative method that searches the Internet for spam outbreaks in real
time. RPD finds the patterns of the outbreak, not only the pattern of individual spam messages. Because it
does not use the content or header of a message, it can identify spam in any language, format, or encoding.
To see an example of real-time spam outbreak analysis, visit the Commtouch Outbreak Monitor at:
www.commtouch.com/Site/ResearchLab/map.asp.
spamBlocker also provides optional virus outbreak detection functionality. For more information, see
Virus Outbreak Detection

spamBlocker requirements

Before you install spamBlocker, you must have:
spamBlocker feature key. To get a feature key, contact your WatchGuard reseller or to the WatchGuard
LiveSecurity web site at: http://www.watchguard.com/store.
POP3 or SMTP email server. spamBlocker works with the WatchGuard POP3 and Incoming SMTP
proxies to scan your email. If you have not configured the POP3 or SMTP proxy, they are enabled when
you configure the spamBlocker service. If you have more than one proxy policy for POP3 or for SMTP,
spamBlocker works with all of them.
Connection to the Internet
User Guide
(VOD).
http://
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