This list of Frequently Asked Questions is provided to help you understand the Mail Scanning Service.
Will spam be deleted before I retrieve my email?
Yes it will unless you configure it not to do so through the cPanel control panel.
How could I handle spam if I decide not to have spam deleted before I retrieve my email?
Any email reported by the system as spam will have the subject line modified and header records added (tagged) to indicate them so that you can automatically filter them from your inbox and place them in a separate folder so that you can check them at a later time. You can configure MailScanner to delete email marked Definitely Spam for you, but beware of the issues in the following answers to spam related questions.
What about incorrectly tagged spam?
If it is an email from someone you regularly receive email from, you can add them to your whitelist in the cPanel MailScanner configuration from within your cpanel.
Will all spam be detected?
No. All the email is scanned and assigned a score based on the likelihood that an email is spam. Thresholds (low scoring and high scoring spam) are used to determine whether an email should be tagged as spam: it is important that this is done to help avoid false-positives and false-negatives.
Is all email tagged as spam, spam?
Not necessarily. The system is not foolproof and there will be instances where legitimate email is tagged as spam and where spam is not tagged as such.
I don't need (spam/virus) checking, can I only have email scanned for one?
Yes, you can configure the service to either scan for viruses, spam or both in your cpanel.
Will viruses be deleted before I retrieve my email?
Yes, they should. All emails and file attachments will be scanned for viruses. If one is found, the virus is removed from the email before it is delivered to your mailbox, a text file attachment will be added to the email notifying you of the virus infection.
Will all viruses be detected?
No system can guarantee 100% detection, though nearly all infected files and should be detected using this service. The service scans all email received and sent through the server to help ensure that you do not accidentally start spreading a virus yourself.
Do I still need a virus scanner on my computer?
Yes! Not only can the service not guarantee that all email viruses will be detected, there are many other ways that your computer can become infected. You should always install an anti-virus solution on every computer and ensure that it is constantly kept up to date.
How do I know whether and email has a virus or is a spam?
There are two methods used to identify these emails to you. Firstly, the subject line of the affected email will be refixed with one of the following:
{Disarmed} - indicates that the email contained html tags that are considered dangerous, e.g. iframe and form tags
{Virus?} - indicates that the email contained a virus and has had the attachment removed.
{Filename?} - indicates that the email contained a dangerous file attachment which has been removed.
{Spam?} - indicates that the email is likely to be spam - you should filter these emails into a separate folder in your email client.
{Definitely Spam?} - indicates that the email is almost definitely spam because it got a very high detection score - you should filter these emails into a separate folder in your email client.
Secondly, additional headers are added to the coding within the email:
X-DLShost-VirusCheck: Found to be clean - indicates that the email passed the virus scanning tests.
X-DLShost-VirusCheck: Found to be infected - indicates that email email contained a virus which has been removed.
X-DLShost-SpamCheck: spam - indicates that the email is likely to be spam and contains information on how the score was reached.
X-DLShost-SpamScore: ssssss - indicates the spam score for the email. Each s represents 1 point, so sssss indicates a score of 5. The service has a default threshold of 5 for {Spam?} and 20 for {Definitely Spam?}
Does the system simply delete all email marked as spam?
We have set spam to be deleted at the server. If you feel you are missing emails, you may log into your cpanel and set rules specific to your domain. Then you may filter the email in your email client and placing it in a separate folder so that you can check through it in your own time.
Another alternative is to have all email marked as {Spam?}, and/or more suitably {Definitely Spam?} delivered to a specific email address. For example, spam@mydomain.com.
How do I configure my email software to filter spam into a separate folder?
You should create a separate folder in your email client called Spam. You should then create an inbox rule to place any email containing the strings {Spam?} or {Definitely Spam?} into that folder.
