MailSHIELD is an antispam / antivirus scanning service using MailFoundry appliances from Solinus Inc.

Incoming email is scanned, those with viruses are deleted and those which the system believes are spam are placed into a quarantine. End users are sent a single digest email daily listing the emails quarantined; using links the quarantined emails can be viewed, released (ie delivered) or released and reported as genuine emails (which will help improve the efficiency of the scanning).

In the near future an Enhanced AntiSpam service will be released which will allow administrations and end users more flexibility over the service.

MailSHIELD FAQ

• Why do we receive so many quarantine digest emails ?
  The most likely cause is because the domain has been configured with a "catchall" mailbox – this picks up email for anything@yourdomain.com. As the MailFoundry has no way of knowing what actual recipient addresses are valid plus spammers target random addresses eg xyz@yourdomain.com, you receive digest emails for each possible recipient. The recommended solution is to turn off catchall mailboxes. Catchall mailboxes have not been recommended for a number of years now due to the spam issues.
  
  
• Is it possible to configure the digest emails to go to a single person ie an administrator for the domain ?
  This is possible with the Enhanced AntiSpam service.
  
  
• Should we continue to use the antispam controls in the webmail/mailserver interfaces ?
  Given the efficiency of the MailFoundry appliance and the problems associated with the builtin SpamAssassin engines / configuration of mailserver filters we would recommend turning off all mailserver antispam controls.
  
  
• How do I delete the quarantined spam ?
  The quarantined email is automatically deleted after 5 days.
  
  
• How do I report spam which got through the filters ?
  You can forward this email to spam@mailfoundry.com – they will investigate and amend the spam database as necessary. However you need to be sure that any email you report has in fact come through the mailfoundry by checking the headers.
  
  
• Is it possible to filter my email hosted at another service provider ?
  Currently we only plan to filter incoming email to our own email servers. However this may be a service we offer in the future.
  
  
• Is it possible to have the emails / interface unbranded or personalised ?
  The interface is already whitelabelled as such. The domain name mailshield.co.uk has been used to ensure no other company name appears on any end user pages or URLs.
  
  
• Is it possible to receive the quarantine digest emails at increased frequency ?
  This is possible (along with other options for quarantining) with the Enhanced AntiSpam service.
  
  
• Is it possible to immediately access quarantined email (eg if I know an email has just been sent but not received, possibly quarantined ?)
  This is possible with the Enhanced AntiSpam service.
  
  
• Can I setup Whitelists ?
  This is possible with the Enhanced AntiSpam service.
  
  
• What happens to outgoing email ?
  Currently outgoing email is not filtered in any way.
  
  
• Is the sender notified when an email is quarantined ?
  No – this would simply result in the unit generating a tremendous amount of email, targeted at domains that do not exist, or other internet users who’s domain has been used without permission.
  
  
  
• You run a backup MX for my domain. How is this affected ?
  Under the defined internet rules of DNS MX records email will only be delivered to a secondary MX (backup mailserver) if the primary mailserver is down. However spammers are aggressively targeting backup mailservers using the reasoning that a secondary system may not have as much (or any!) antispam controls in place and thus they are more likely to get their spam through.
  
  We are happy to continue acting as secondary MX provided customers agree to the following conditions :
  
  1. The secondary MX record will be pointed to a MailFoundry appliance
  2. The MailFoundry will be set to “Delete” for all identified spam.
  
  This is because acting as a secondary MX means that almost 100% of email received is spam. On one trial we performed, out of 2500 emails received for a domain, only 3 were passed through and 2 were in fact spam. That’s 1 in 2500 genuine emails.