MailScanner scans all e-mail for viruses, spam and attacks against security vulnerabilities.

•  Scans all incoming and outgoing e-mail for viruses and dangerous HTML code
•  Automatically updates virus signatures every hour
•  Identifies over 98% of spam using several techniques, including highly advanced heuristics
•  Spam can be tagged, discarded, or forwarded to other addresses for inspection by administrators
•  Scans e-mail for attacks against known and unknown security vulnerabilities in popular e-mail applications

What happens to the spam? 

All email passing through the IGHosting.com mail server receives a "spam score". Email below a certain score (5 by default) is not tagged as spam and is delivered to the recipient without any changes. Email that scores between 5 and 11 is most likely spam, but there is a very small chance that it might be real e-mail. These messages are tagged with a subject header of "{Spam?}" and delivered to the recipient. This makes it easy for users to create a "rule" in Outlook Express (or "filter" in Eudora) that automatically moves the suspected spam to the Trash folder, or some other folder for later inspection. This ensures that you won't ever miss a potentially important e-mail.

Email that scores off our spam-meter (over 11 by default) is discarded, but other delivery options are available. The user never needs to be bothered by this "high scoring spam".

Spammers are ingenious and always looking for new ways to get messages through. So  occasionally, a small percentage of spam will make it to your inbox untagged. To combat these new techniques, the system "learns" over time, and fewer spam messages slip through.

It is important to note that spam scores and delivery options can be adjusted for an entire domain or for individual users allowing the site administrator to determine what is spam and what to do with it.

Do I still need a desktop virus scanner?

Absolutely! Viruses can enter your systems from sources other than company email. Floppy drives, laptops, websites, webmail (i.e. Hotmail, Yahoo, Netscape, etc), are all potential sources for viruses. E-mail attachments downloaded from web mail sites do NOT pass through the IGHosting mail filters, but are downloaded directly to the desktop system.

All desktop systems should be protected by by a virus scanning application that is updated regularly.