This list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) is
provided to help you understand the Anti-Virus and Anti-Spam
Scanning Service provided by ptsamail.com. If you have
any questions that are unanswered here, please
contact us.
Will spam be deleted before I
retrieve my email?
No email is deleted from your mailbox, unless you request us
to do so. 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
request that we simply delete email marked as Spam and/or
Definitely Spam for you, but beware of the issues in the
following answers to spam related questions.
Should I tell you about incorrectly
tagged spam?
Not unless it is email from someone you regularly receive
email from and want to have added to a whitelist. The simplest
thing to do would be to add an extra
inbox rule in
your email client to keep email from them in your inbox.
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 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. This is why all email is delivered
by default, so you can filter them email in your email client
and check through the spam to ensure there is no email that
you actually need.
I don't need (spam/virus) checking,
can I only have email scanned for one?
Yes, we can configure the service to either scan for viruses,
spam or both.
Will viruses be deleted before I
retrieve my email?
Yes. All emails and file attachments are 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.
Removed viruses and
dangerous file
attachments removed from email are stored in a quarantine
area on the server for 30 days. You can request the file from
quarantine as described in the text file attachments, or ,
preferably ask the sender to resend the file in a zip archive.
You can also request that we simply delete any emails that
have virus attachments, rather than receiving the cleaned
email.
Will all viruses be detected?
No system can guarantee 100% detection, though nearly all
infected files and
dangerous file attachments should be 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
prefixed with one of the following:
{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 email:
X-WTTW-VirusCheck: Found to be
clean - indicates that the
email passed the virus scanning tests.
X-WTTW-VirusCheck: Found to be
infected - indicates that
email email contained a virus which has been removed.
X-WTTW-SpamCheck: spam
- indicates that the email is likely to be spam and contains
information on how the score was reached.
X-WTTW-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
threshold of 5 for {Spam?} and 20 for {Definitely Spam?}
Can the system simply delete all
email marked as spam?
We advise against this as it is possible that legitimate email
will be deleted and the sender will never know that you didn't
receive it. We recommend
filtering the email in your email client and placing it in
a separate folder so that you can check through it in your own
time.
If you're happy that the email marked as {Spam?}, and/or more
suitably {Definitely Spam?} is in deed SPAM, we can configure the system for
you to delete that email. When your mail is marked as {Spam?}
and it is not SPAM, MS Outlook allows you to select the "NOT
JUNK" button and it places the emails on a "safe" list.
Another alternative that we offer is to have all email marked
as {Spam?}, and/or more suitably {Definitely Spam?} delivered
to a specific email address. For example,
spam@yourdomain.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.
We have instructions on how to do this with
Outlook Express and Outlook
here.
How much does the service cost?
The cost FREE no matter which plan you choose.
I still have some questions
Please feel free to
contact us
with any questions that you have.