Anti Spam

Spam is unsolicited e-mail on the Internet. (E-mail that is wanted is sometimes referred to as ham.) From the sender's point-of-view, spam is a form of bulk mail, often sent to a list obtained from a spambot or to a list obtained by companies that specialise in creating e-mail distribution lists. To the receiver, it usually seems like junk e-mail.

Spam is roughly equivalent to unsolicited telephone marketing calls except that the user pays for part of the message since everyone shares the cost of maintaining the Internet. Spammers typically send a piece of e-mail to a distribution list in the millions, expecting that only a tiny number of readers will respond to their offer. It has become a major problem for all Internet users.

The term spam is said to derive from a famous Monty Python sketch ("Well, we have Spam, tomato & Spam, egg & Spam, Egg, bacon & Spam...") that was current when spam first began arriving on the Internet. SPAM is a trademarked Hormel meat product that was well-known in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II.

ReassureMe.com’s Kaspersky Internet Security component which detects spam, processes it according to a set of rules, and saves you time when using email, is called Anti-Spam.

Anti-Spam uses the following method to determine whether an email is spam:

1. The sender’s address is scanned for matches on black and white lists of addresses.

• If the sender’s address is on the white list, the email is marked as accepted.
• If the sender’s address is on the black list, the email is marked as spam. Further processing depends on the action you select

2. If the sender’s address is not found on the white or black list, the email is analyzed using PDB technology for phrases typical of spam, using the database created by training the Anti-Spam component.

3. Anti-Spam examines the text of the email in detail and scans it for lines from the black or white list.

• If the text of the email contains lines from the white list of lines, the email is marked as accepted.
• If phrases from the phrase black list are encountered, the email is marked as spam. Further processing depends on the action you specify.

4. If the email does not contain phrases from the black or white list, it is analyzed for phishing. If the text of the email contains an address contained in the anti-phishing database, the email is marked as spam. Further processing depends on the action you specify.

5. If the email does not contain phishing lines, it is scanned for spam using special technologies:

• Image analysis using GSG technology
• Message text analysis using the iBayesian algorithm for spam recognition

6. Finally the email is scanned for advanced spam filtration factors specified by the user when Anti-Spam was installed. This could include scanning for correctness of HTML tags, font size, or hidden characters.

You can enable or disable each of these stages of the analysis. Anti-Spam exists as a plug-in for the following email clients:

• Microsoft Office Outlook
• Microsoft Outlook Express

The task panel for Microsoft Office Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Express clients has two buttons, Spam and Accepted, which can configure Anti-Spam to detect spam right in your mailbox.

Anti-Spam uses special self-training iBayes algorithm, which allows the component over time to more accurately distinguish between spam and accepted email. The data source for the algorithm is email contents. Situations arise when iBayes is unable to classify a certain email as either spam or accepted email to a high degree of accuracy. These emails are marked as potential spam.

Emails that are spam or potential spam are modified: the markings [!! SPAM] or [?? Probable Spam], are added to the subject line. The rules for processing spam or potential spam emails for Microsoft Office Outlook or Microsoft Outlook Express are specified in special plug-in components within the email client itself.