Choosing the best MX spam filter

A cloud MX spam filter is essential to manage large amounts of spam and de-risk a business. An MX Spam filter can be used directly with Microsoft Exchange and is a simple yet versatile method for eliminating unwanted emails and protecting your network against email-borne threats.

We explore an MX spam filter, how it works, and how to choose the best-fit spam filter for your business.

How an MX spam filter works

When you send an email, the first thing that happens is that your email client connects to an SMTP server for your email account. This outbound email server checks the email for compliance with a policy and then asks a DNS server where the email should go. To find the recipient’s domain name, the server must perform a look-up using the “MX records” for the recipient's email server. MS stands for Mail Exchange. The outbound email server then uses the SMTP protocol to send the email to the recipient´s inbound email server, delivering the email to the correct account.

An MX spam filter works by changing the address of the MX record from your inbound email server to the inbound email server of the email filtering service. Thus, it redirects inbound emails, allowing them to be thoroughly checked before being sent. This filtering service provider inspects each email for spam and malware. Any suspicious emails are dealt with using quarantine or other methods like greylisting and sandboxing.

If an email is found to be legitimate and malware-free, it is released to the inbound email server for delivery. An MS spam filter helps eliminate spam and de-risks your organization from the scourge of cyber-attacks like ransomware. The MS spam filter reduces the load on your email server by reducing spam significantly.

MX spam filters for Microsoft Exchange

Microsoft Exchange is one of the most popular mail servers. While Exchange comes with basic levels of spam prevention, it needs to improve in preventing sophisticated spam threats. An MX spam filter for Microsoft Exchange is easy to implement, updates in real time, and can be managed from any Internet-connected device. Advanced MX Spam Filters are designed to detect and prevent modern email-borne cyber threats like zero-day and emerging attacks.

Like most cloud-based applications, an MX spam filter for mail exchangers has no capital expense as it is charged on a subscription basis. Some advanced spam filters, like SpamTitan, are compatible with every operating system and have no limit on the number of users or inboxes. Organizations subscribe to a provider´s service, redirect their mail exchanger (MX) record, and configure the service for the required monitoring features and report options.

What an MX spam filtering service offers

Spam has become increasingly challenging to detect. Similarly, spam that contains malware uses clever tactics, like encryption, to evade detection from conventional spam filters. Modern MX spam filters that integrate with mail exchangers, like Microsoft Exchange, are designed to add additional layers of intelligent protection.

AN MX filtering service, like SpamTitan, deploys multiple layers of protection, each acting at a more granular level to catch complex spam and phishing threats. The types of technologies behind the layers include the following:

Multiple layers of protection

Advanced spam gateways use intelligence to build increasingly granular controls to handle evasive and emerging threats. Some of the techniques used by a spam gateway, like the SpamTitan MX spam filter, include dual antivirus software engines, Bayesian Analysis, real-time blocklists (RBLs), lists of websites detected in unsolicited emails (SURBLs), and sender policy frameworks. These layers add increasingly adaptive techniques to capture almost 100% of spam emails.

Malicious URL interception

Conventional spam filters, like Microsoft Exchange's built-in protection, offer Recipient Verification and Sender Policy Framework tools to enhance email security. However, these built-in spam filters in mail exchangers typically do not provide mechanisms like SUBRL filtering to detect malicious URLs. This feature reduces the network exposure to phishing attempts. With fewer phishing emails delivered, a user is less likely to reveal login credentials or other sensitive information.

Sandboxing

Sandboxing adds control to the spam identification process. Using a sandbox, an administrator can isolate and check suspicious emails.  The sandbox is a safe environment where an administrator can open emails, check malicious links, and use anti-malware tools to test for malware. The email can be forwarded to the original recipient if it is safe. The sandbox is an additional and optional layer to add human-centric control of borderline suspicious emails. The sandbox also keeps track of malicious signals, adding them to known attack types so that any repeat attacks will be automatically stopped.

Greylisting

Greylisting is an essential layer in a MX spam filter.  A greylisting layer sends any suspicious email back to the original mail server.  Because the mail servers used by spammers are too busy sending out spam emails to respond to the request for an email to be resent, the suspicious email is effectively dealt with. This method ensures that new spam sources are dealt with before they appear on a global blocklist. Consequently, an MX spam filter that utilizes Greylisting catches more spam than comparable products lacking this feature (such as Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, EOP).

Other functions of an MX spam filter for mail exchangers

An MX spam filter for mail exchangers performs two other essential functions in addition to eliminating spam emails:

Intelligent, multi-layered scanning: Although most organizations will install antivirus software to protect their networks from adware, spyware, and botnets, an MX spam filter provides additional online security. Spam filters like SpamTitan use multiple layers of AV protection to double-check the presence of malware. SpamTitan also includes phishing protection and malicious URL blocking – quarantining any email suspected of linking to a malicious website. These additional functions include machine learning to identify emerging threat patterns and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to identify unusual communication exchanges. The latter can help prevent financially damaging threats like business email compromise (BEC).

Outbound email scanning: This prevents an organization from sending out emails containing malware, links directing the recipient to a malicious website, or anything that could be perceived by another cloud spam filter MX as spam. This function ensures that your organization´s IP address does not appear on a global blocklist, which could damage your brand and delay or prevent your company emails from being delivered.

TitanHQ’s MX spam filter - SpamTitan

TitanHQ develops email and web security solutions for organizations and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) of all sizes. Over 5,000 customers use our solutions to eliminate unwanted emails and protect networks against email-borne threats.

Our cloud-based MX spam filter for mail exchangers is SpamTitan. This award-winning spam filter has been independently verified for effectiveness:

SpamTitan regularly beats the competition in real-world user reviews:

TrustRadius

Peerspot

SpamTitan Cloud is infinitely scalable and, therefore, suitable for all sizes and types of organizations, from the smallest home-based office to the largest multi-national company.

Our cloud MX spam filter ensures email continuity during downtime or a server outage, and customizable configuration settings, monitoring features, and report options can be managed via a web-based portal with an intuitive interface.

If your organization is a Managed Service Provider for smaller companies or service resellers, SpamTitan Cloud protects your networks from rogue or hacked customers. It is available in white-label format for rebranding and has an extensive API set for integration with third-party management tools. SpamTitan Cloud makes a cloud MX spam filter profitable – for you and your customers.

Read our MSP case study: Critical IT Specialists, Transcend Networks MSP, Embrace Email Security from TitanHQ.

SpamTitan Features

• Greylisting Option
• Sandboxing
• AI-powered phishing protection
• Malicious URL blocking
• Real-time URL checks
• Outbound scanning
• Exceptional spam detection rate
• 0% false positive rate.
• Dual antivirus protection.
• White label option for MSPs.

Comparison of Microsoft Office365 and SpamTitan

Many businesses use Microsoft Exchange or Office 365 for their email. Microsoft has incorporated several security features into its email offerings, although it can significantly improve security with a more advanced anti-phishing, anti-malware, and anti-spam solution.

Every incoming email is a potential threat, so all emails must be subjected to checks. Microsoft's in-built Exchange Online Protection (EOP) provides basic levels of spam detection. Third-party MX spam filters, like SpamTitan, increase the effectiveness of spam email detection. Organizations that need to implement a third-party mail spam filter continue to have high levels of spam delivered to their employees' inboxes.

Office 365 EOP security can be strengthened by a defense-in-depth approach to provide greater protection against malware, ransomware, and phishing attempts. SpamTitan offers superior email filtering by using predictive methods to block new variants of malware, zero-day attacks, and spear phishing attempts, ensuring these malicious emails are quarantined or rejected rather than delivered to inboxes. Organizations that rely on the cybersecurity protections of Exchange or Office 365 are likely to find that many email threats are still delivered to end users' inboxes.

The table below summarizes some of the essential features that are present in SpamTitan that are not used by Office 365 or Exchange Online Protection:

Try SpamTitan MX spam filter for free for 14 days.

The most effective way to evaluate a cloud spam filter MX is to try it in your environment to ensure it is the best fit for your company.

TitanHQ offers a 14-day, fully functioning SpamTitan MX spam filter for free for 14 days. We also provide full technical and customer support during the evaluation period, with no obligation to subscribe to our service once the trial period has expired.

To learn more about our offer - or more about how an MX spam filter works - please do not hesitate to call our team of Sales Technicians. One of our team will be happy to answer any questions you may have about a cloud-based spam filter for mail exchangers and guide you through redirecting your mail exchanger (MX) record; you will stop spam emails within minutes.