14.12.2019

Outlook Makes Users Manually Block Spam

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Apr 15, 2018  Outlook includes a Junk Email filter.This filter cannot be updated by the end user and Microsoft stopped releasing updates for it in November 2016. For most users, setting the Junk email filter set to high is good enough, especially if their mail is also scanned by a server side anti-spam filter. Block a sender. When you no longer want to see messages from someone, you can block a sender. Right-click a message from the sender you want to block, and then click Junk Block Sender. The blocked person can still send you mail, but if anything from his or her email address makes it to your email account, it’s immediately moved to the Junk Email folder. Jun 04, 2017  Why don't we have a 'Block Sender's Domain' right-click option? There are quite a few people out there who add every address they receive spam from to the Block List. Obviously, that is not the way to go either but the 'damage' is less than directly blocking an entire domain. Is there something Outlook users can do to block entire.

  • Sep 11, 2018  This article explains how to configure Outlook Junk Mail Filter properly to stop as many junk emails as possible. How to keep the filter up to date, take a good message out of the Junk folder and ensure that no legitimate e-mails gets there.
  • Nov 15, 2019  Outlook Mail on the web makes it easy to block messages by individual senders from showing up in your inbox folder. For even more.
  • Sep 07, 2019  4 Junk/Spam servers can easily be identified and blocked at the 'server-level' by entities like Microsoft-but Microsoft does not do this-Microsoft leaves it up to the user to block junk/spam individually 'by-the-piece' rather than doing it themselves by blocking email servers disseminating spam through outlook.live, hotmail.com etc.
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Applies to: Exchange Server 2013

In Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, safelist aggregation refers to anti-spam functionality shared across Microsoft Outlook and Exchange. This functionality collects data from the anti-spam Safe Recipients Lists, Safe Senders Lists, Blocked Senders Lists, and contact data that Outlook users configure, and makes this data available to the Exchange anti-spam agents.

When you enable and correctly configure safelist aggregation, the Content Filter agent passes safe email messages to the enterprise mailbox without additional processing. Email messages that Outlook users receive from contacts that those users have added to their Outlook Safe Recipients List or Safe Senders List or have trusted are identified by the Content Filter agent as safe. An Outlook contact is a person, inside or outside the user's organization, about whom the user can save several types of information, such as email and street addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and Web page URLs.

In Exchange 2013, the safelist aggregation process also allows the Sender Filtering agent to block incoming messages from the per-recipient Block Senders List.

Safelist aggregation can help reduce the instances of false-positives in anti-spam filtering performed by Exchange. In the context of spam filtering, a false-positive occurs when a spam filter incorrectly identifies a legitimate message as spam.

For organizations that filter hundreds of thousands of messages from the Internet every day, even a small percentage of false-positives means that users might not receive many messages that were incorrectly identified as spam if those messages were quarantined or deleted.

Safelist aggregation is likely the most effective way to reduce false-positives. In Outlook 2010 or newer versions, users can create Safe Senders Lists. Safe Senders Lists specify a list of domain names and email addresses from which the Outlook user wants to receive messages. By default, email addresses in Outlook Contacts and in the Exchange global address list are included in this list. By default, Outlook adds all external contacts to which the user sends mail to the Safe Senders List.

Information stored in the Outlook user's safelist collection

A safelist collection is the combined data from the user's Safe Senders List, Safe Recipients List, Blocked Senders List, and external contacts. This data is stored in Outlook and in the Exchange mailbox.

The following types of information are stored in an Outlook user's safelist collection:

  • Safe senders and safe recipients: The From message header indicates a sender. The To field of the email message indicates a recipient. Safe senders and safe recipients are represented by full SMTP addresses, such as masato@contoso.com. Outlook users can add senders and recipients to their safe lists.

  • Blocked senders: Just like safe senders, users can block unwanted senders by adding them to their Blocked Senders Lists.

  • Safe domain: The domain is the part of an SMTP address that follows the @ symbol. For example, contoso.com is the domain in the masato@contoso.com address. Outlook users can add sending domains to their safe lists.

    Important

    By default, Exchange doesn't include the domains during safelist aggregation. However, you can configure safelist aggregation to include the safe domain data for the anti-spam agents. For more information, see Configure Content Filtering to Use Safe Domain Data.

  • External contacts: Two types of external contacts can be included in the safelist aggregation. The first type of external contact includes contacts to whom Outlook users have sent mail. This class of contact is added to the Safe Senders List only if an Outlook user selects the corresponding option in the Junk Email settings in Outlook 2007.

    The second type of external contact includes the users' Outlook contacts. Users can add or import these contacts into Outlook. This class of contact is added to the Safe Senders List only if an Outlook user selects the corresponding option in the Junk Email Filter settings in Outlook 2010 or Outlook 2007.

How Exchange uses the safelist collection

The safelist collection is stored on the user's Mailbox server. A user can have up to 1,024 unique entries in a safelist collection. Exchange 2013 has a mailbox assistant, called the Junk Email Options mailbox assistant, which monitors changes to the safelist collection for your mailboxes. It then replicates these changes to Active Directory, where the safelist collection is stored on each user object. When the safelist collection is stored on the user object in Active Directory, the safelist collection is aggregated with the anti-spam functionality of Exchange 2013 and is optimized for minimized storage and replication. Exchange uses the safelist collection data during content filtering. If you have a subscribed Edge Transport server in your perimeter network, the Microsoft Exchange EdgeSync service replicates the safelist collection to the Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) instance on the Edge Transport server.

Important

Although the safe recipient data is stored in Outlook and can be aggregated into the safelist collection, the content filtering functionality doesn't act on safe recipient data.

Hashing of safelist collection entries

Safelist collection entries are hashed (SHA-256) one way before they are stored as array sets across three user object attributes, msExchSafeSenderHash, msExchSafeRecipientHash, and msExchBlockedSendersHash, as a binary large object. When data is hashed, an output of fixed length is produced, and the output is likely to be unique. For hashing of safelist collection entries, a 4-byte hash is produced. When a message is received from the Internet, Exchange hashes the sender address and compares it to the hashes stored on behalf of the Outlook user to whom the message was sent. If the sender matches the safe senders hash, the message bypasses content filtering. If the sender matches the blocked senders hash, the message is blocked.

One-way hashing of safelist collection entries performs the following important functions:

  • Minimizes storage and replication space: Most of the time, hashing reduces the size of the data hashed. Therefore, saving and transmitting a hashed version of a safelist collection entry conserves storage space and replication time. For example, a user who has 200 entries in his or her safelist collection would create about 800 bytes of hashed data stored and replicated in Active Directory.

  • Renders user safelist collections unusable by malicious users: Because one-way hash values are impossible to reverse-engineer into the original SMTP address or domain, the safelist collections don't yield usable email addresses for malicious users who might compromise an Exchange server.

Enabling safelist aggregation

Safelist aggregation is enabled by default in Exchange 2013. Unlike in Exchange Server 2007, you don't need to manually run the Update-SafeList cmdlet to hash and write the safelist collection data to Active Directory. In Exchange 2013, the safelist collection data is written to Active Directory by the Junk Email Options mailbox assistant.

To make the safelist aggregation data in Active Directory available to Edge Transport servers in the perimeter network, you need to install and configure the Microsoft Exchange EdgeSync service so that the safelist aggregation data is replicated to AD LDS.

You can still manually run safelist aggregation by using the UpdateSafelist cmdlet. However, you need to be mindful of the network and replication traffic that may be generated when you run this command. Running Update-Safelist on multiple mailboxes where safelists are heavily used may generate a significant amount of traffic. We recommend that if you run the command on multiple mailboxes, you should run the command during off-peak, non-business hours.

The Update-SafeList cmdlet reads the safelist collection from the user's mailbox, hashes each entry, sorts the entries for easy search, and then converts the hash to a binary attribute. Finally, the Update-SafeList cmdlet compares the binary attribute that was created to any value stored on the attribute. If the two values are identical, the Update-SafeList cmdlet doesn't update the user attribute value with the safelist aggregation data. If the two attribute values are different, the Update-SafeList cmdlet updates the safelist aggregation value.

One fine day you take out time from your busy schedule to delete all the spam emails yet the next morning when you check your inbox, you are bombarded with a lot of spams. And mind it, this lot is a huge number. Most of us have faced this frustrating situation at some time or the other. Isn’t it?

We subscribe to newsletters unknowingly without giving a thought whether we would actually need them in later days or not, and hence spam emails keep adding up with each passing day. Not just this, malicious emails including deadly virus and malware infection keep filling our inboxes without our consent which are definitely hazardous.

Not only do these emails fill up the inbox, when opened there is a high probability of infections spreading on your computer.

To avoid all the hassle and time required in deleting spam emails from your inbox, and to keep it free from any kind of infections, there are many email spam filters available. This article lists the same. Continue reading to find some of the best free email spam filters for Windows.

List of Best Email Spam Filters for Windows:

Confused as to which one to install, read the article and decide which one suits best as your requirements.

1. SPAMfighter

Get rid of spam email in a jiffy. Partnered with Microsoft, SPAMfighter is one of the best email spam filters. If you are using Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Thunderbird, Windows live mail, SPAMfigther seems the best option available.

It comes with an intuitive User Interface that provides ease of access.

Features:

  • Comes with advanced technology to block spam.
  • Safeguard email accounts on your Windows computer.
  • Provide enhanced protection against identity theft, phishing, and other online email deceptions.
  • It’s free for home users.
  • One-click spam abuse report.
  • Multi-lingual utility.
  • Requires a minimum of 128MB of memory.

Compatibility:

Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP (SP2), Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 & Windows 10 (32bit and 64bit).

Read Also:Boost Your Email Skills With 5 Must Have Web Apps

2. MailWasher

How To Check Spam Folder In Outlook

An easy yet effective way to block illegitimate spam emails even before they enter your PC. With a database of almost 8 million users, MailWasher comes with an advanced spam blocking engine that does not let spam mails enter your system.

MailWasher is a free tool that easily works with Outlook, Yahoo, Outlook Express, Incredimail, Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird, Gmail, Hotmail, EM Client.

Features:

  • Compatible with all email clients and email programs.
  • Easy to use and customizable UI.
  • Works on both Windows and mobiles.
  • Doesn’t let spam enter your PC.
  • Preview facility before download.
  • Bayesian spam filtering available.
  • Automatic updates are available.
  • Real-time spam filtering.
  • Protection against phishing, unwanted emails, spams, email viruses, newsletters.

Compatibility:

Operating System: Windows 7, 8 and 10, Vista and XP.

3. Spamihilator

How To Check Spam In Outlook

This is yet another awesome email spam filter software to keep your inbox spam free. It claims to remove 98% of spam emails even before they enter your PC. Spamihilator effectively works between the Internet and your Email client and achieves this by carefully examining every email.

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Spamihilator is easily compatible with almost every email client like Outlook, Eudora, Mozilla, Thunderbird, IncrediMail, Pegasus Mail, Phoenix Mail etc.

Features:

  • Uses multiple filters for highest spam recognition rate.
  • Makes use of Bayesian Filter.
  • Comes with spam word filters.
  • Presence of other filters like Link Filter, DCC Filter and, Rule Filter makes the engine more accurate.
  • Plugins for more added filters and features.
  • Compatible with email clients working on both IMAP and POP3.
  • Free for use.
  • Automatic updates.

Compatibility:

Operating System: Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista/7/8.

4. SpamExperts

Easily stay protected from spams, phishing emails, virus infections, ransomware, malware attacks with this amazing utility. Our list of best free Email spam filter for Windows 2018 is incomplete without SpamExperts.

It comes with self-learning smart technology that deletes spam emails before they enter your inbox. SaaS email filtering systems and first level filters block the incoming spam emails thereby effectively eliminates the time involved in deleting the spam emails.

How To Find Spam Folder In Outlook

Features:

  • Advanced filter quality and efficiency provide almost a leading rate of 100% and 0% false positives.
  • Real-time synchronization and updated filters.
  • Compatible with almost every email client like Exchange mail filter, Zimbra mail, Postfix mail filter, Direct Admin, ISPsystem and Open-Xchange etc.
  • Quarantine options to easily check mail status.
  • Easy to use and fully automated user interface to provide ease of access.
  • Secure data collection and analysis for enhanced performance.
  • 24×7 monitoring.
  • Live spam information.

5. SpamBully

An efficient anti-spam tool that avoids any kind of spam emails entering your Windows PC. It uses Artificial Intelligence and server blacklists to ensure that your inbox is free from any kind of illegitimate, spam and phishing emails.

How To Block Spam Emails

Its effective engine easily and effectively detects and deletes any kind of fraudulent links present in the emails.

It works with email clients like Office 365, Outlook, Outlook Express, Live mail etc.

Feature:

  • Advanced search engine that allows you to choose which email should land to your inbox.
  • Graphical representation of statics to make the working of the utility more convenient.
  • Easy mobile forwarding facility.
  • Real-time blackhole lists for internet domains that send massive spam emails and easily filters them.
  • Auto-delete spam emails.

Read Also:7 Best Free Email Service Providers

While phishing and spam emails, emails with illegitimate links, fraudulent emails containing virus infections pose serious threats to your System, deleting them manually will take a lifetime.

Block Spam Mail Free

To safeguard your inbox from any kind of unwanted emails and efficiently manage your inbox, having an effective email spam filter is a must. We have tried our best to provide you an idea of all the latest and most used email spam filters for Windows.

Add A User To Outlook

Download one from the list of 5 best email spam filters for Windows and keep your inbox spam free.