We are forced to play in an unfair game with cyber criminals. This game the cybercriminals only need to trick us once, whereas we need to win every time. An analogy is two basketball teams are playing where one team only needs to score one bucket to win whereas the other team can score over 100 points and still lose.

The main way most cyber criminals trick us is by sending us spam emails. Spam email is the number one route criminals use to attack small businesses by sending malware or ransomware. This attack does not just apply to small businesses, but to everyone from government and non-profit agencies to everyday people.

There are many ways to avoid spam emails, but your first defense and main defense is your spam filter. Although spam filters are not 100% successful at removing all spam, it is extremely risky not to have one. Do you know how effective is your email spam filter? In this blog we will discuss just that.

Spam filters analyze the address, header, attachments, etc. of inbound emails to detect spam and prevent it from arriving in your inbox. Almost all email host provide some sort of spam filtration and security. Some small businesses choose to use their email hosts’ spam filter or opt for a free one.

There are many different types of filtering techniques. For example, a Blacklist allows you to block emails from specific list and/or IP addresses while a Whitelist allows you to specify which senders to allow mail from. Word-Based filters block any email that contains certain terms, while Heuristic filters assign points to certain words or terms, blocking messages according to their points. So how do you choose the best spam filter for your needs?

Choosing a spam filter can be confusing and exhausting. Free spam filters are okay for personal emails but for small, medium and large businesses, the absolute best option is to choose paid, business-grade spam filter. This paid option provides the spam filter parent company the resources to maintain and quickly improve its filtering capabilities in a constantly changing threat environment. The best spam filters block as much as possible including business email compromise, zero-day exploits, phishing attempts and ransomware attacks. Also, business grade spam filters provide the ability to see blocked emails, just in case any messages marked as spam are legitimate.

Here at Cantrell’s Computer Sales & Service, we use and recommend an email spam filter called “Email Threat Protection” from AppRiver. In our experience they are the best on the market today. Their email spam filter can be integrated with other spam filters or used on its own. AppRiver has 15 years of experience and provides free 24-hour customer support.

Although it is not possible to prevent cyber criminals from sending you spam emails, using a spam filter can greatly lower the amount of spam you or your employees must deal with. In addition to this, any person handling emails must always beware of any messages that look suspicious.

For more information about cyber-attacks and how to prevent them, contact Cantrell’s IT at (925) 827-1200 (phone or text) or wade@cantrell-tech.com.