AntiSpam Glossary

Adware or advertising-supported software is any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertising material to a computer after the software is installed on it or while the application is being used. Adware is not as dangerous as other infections, but it can be incredibly annoying. These are the types of programs that download files onto your computer by saying they are necessary for certain websites to work or without notifying you at all.

Problem analysis for decision-making in which semi-subjective probabilities are assigned to uncertainties so that they can be analyzed as risk and refined with experience. Bayesian inference is a statistical inference in which probabilities are interpreted not as frequencies or proportions or the like, but rather as degrees of belief. The name comes from the frequent use of Bayes' theorem in this discipline.

As regarding spam, blacklists are lists of known spammers, their IP addresses, and/or their ISP (Internet Service Provider). Using this information, spam filters can block all messages coming from known spammers and/or their ISPs. ISPs that fail to discipline spammers may find all email from their legitimate customers blocked by large numbers of recipients.

Anti-Spam software can block unwanted attachments including file types, mime types and renamed files. This can be enabled at both the domain and user level allowing administrators to block unwanted content in line with the organisations email policy.

A gateway is a network point that acts as an entrance to another network. On the Internet, a node or stopping point can be either a gateway node or a host (end-point) node. Both the computers of Internet users and the computers that serve pages to users are host nodes. Gateway could be hardware or software.

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. A protocol used to accessing information directories such as addresses, phone numbers, etc. It is being implemented in Web browsers and e-mail programs to enable lookup queries.

Malware is slang for malicious software. Malware is software designed specifically to disrupt a computer system. A trojan horse, worm or a virus could be classified as Malware. Some advertising software can be malicious in that it can try to re-install itself after you remove it. In the case of invasion of privacy for the purposes of fraud or the theft of identity, software that passively observes the use of a computer is also malware (“spyware”).

“Phishing” is a form of Internet fraud that aims to steal valuable information such as credit cards, social security numbers, user IDs and passwords. A fake website is created that is similar to that of a legitimate organisation, typically a financial institution such as a bank or insurance company. An email is sent requesting that the recipient access the fake website (which will usually be a replica of a trusted site) and enter their personal details, including security access codes. The page looks genuine, because it is easy to fake a valid web site. Any HTML page on the web can be modified to suit a phishing scheme. Phishing e-mails are often sent to large lists of people, expecting that some percentage of the recipients will actually have an account with the real organisation. The term comes from "fishing," where bait is used to catch a fish. In phishing, e-mail is the bait.

The Spam Quarantine is where messages classified as spam are held for delivery until they are released by you.

RBL is an abbreviation for "Real-time Blackhole List". As mentioned below, "RBL" was the name of the first system to use this technology. However, since "RBL" is a trademark for the proprietary MAPS DNSBL, using it as a generic term causes trademark dilution. Some pieces of mail software have configuration parameters that use "RBLs" or "RBL domains" when any DNSBLs can be used, not just the MAPS RBL.

"SPAM" mail is the practice of sending massive amounts of e-mail promotions or advertisements (and scams) to people that have not asked for it. Spam mail is controversial and there are many levels of definitions for it. Many times, spam e-mail lists are created by "harvesting" e-mail addresses from discussion boards and groups, chat rooms, IRC, and web pages.

The digest lists all e-mail messages that were quarantined in the past 24 hours. You will receive one Spam Digest per day provided that messages were quarantined.

Any software that covertly gathers user information through the user's Internet connection without his or her knowledge, usually for advertising purposes. Spyware can change system settings, install keystroke loggers, collect and report consumer's personal information, use computer processing capacity without permission, and deliver spam or ads without consumer's notice and consent.

Secure Shell or SSH is a network protocol that allows data to be exchanged over a secure channel between two computers. It provides strong authentication and secure communications over insecure channels. It is a replacement for rlogin, rsh, rcp, and rdist. SSH protects a network from attacks such as IP spoofing, IP source routing, and DNS spoofing.

SURBLs are lists of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) hosts, typically web site domains, that have been observed in unsolicited messages. SURBLs differ from most other RBLs in that they're used to detect spam based on message body URIs (usually web sites). Unlike most other RBLs, SURBLs are not meant to identify spam senders by their message headers or connection IP addresses. Instead they allow you to identify messages by the spam sites mentioned in their message bodies.

“Trojan horse”; a reference to the story of the Trojan War, a piece of malware (such as a virus program) contained within a legitimate program. Once your computer becomes infected by the worm or virus, it can be very difficult to repair the damage. Trojans usually come attached to another file, for example: .avi, .exe, or even .jpg. Many people do not notice or see file extensions, so what may appear as "fun program.zip" in reality could be "fun program.zip.exe." The difference here is the added .exe extension. Once the file is opened, the Trojan quietly installs itself.

Self-replicating, malicious code that attaches itself to an application program or other executable system component and leaves no obvious signs of its presence...

VMware is the world’s leading provider of virtualization solutions and services. Through a pioneering virtualization approach, VMware solutions separate the operating system and application software from the underlying hardware. Each virtual machine instance can execute its own guest operating system, such as (but not limited to) Windows, Linux, and BSD variants. In simple terms, VMware Workstation allows one physical machine to run two or more operating systems simultaneously.

The opposite of a blacklist. That is, instead of being an explicit list of senders from whom email will not be accepted or delivered, a whitelist is an explicit list of senders from whom email will be accepted.