Exchange Server Intelligent Message Filter

I had a customer who recently asked me if I could do anything about the increase in spam they were experiencing. I advised them to use the Junk Email controls in Outlook 2003 as these work quite well in my experience (at least as a first option).

However, I then came across this link which is a guide to Exchange Server Intelligent Message Filter v2 Operations Guide linked from Susan Bradley's Blog. Looks like this is automatically installed with SP2 for Exchange Server. Has anyone got experience of using this? What are the results?

Cheers,

Vijay

I have not read that document as yet, but I do intend to.

I have had pretty good results with the IMF so far though.  I tend not to use it these days as I have e-mail cleansed by a 3rd party for all of my customers on support contracts.  I feel better about that as I know the nasties out there can't even communicate with the SBS box, saves bandwidth and reduces risk.

Hi Paulie,

Interesting that you use a 3rd party for the filtering. How aggressive is the filtering? Do you have issues with it ever wrongly classifying real mail as junk?

I would think your customers would be quite happy as they don't have to worry about filtering through the spam themselves and/or checking Junk Email folders!

Cheers,

Vijay

Most of them are very happy with it.

The system comes with a control panel so they are able to see at a glance e-mail which has been quarantined and release it to the queue if they need to do so.  They can also set black/white lists and define a list of valid e-mail addresses for thier domain which increases the accuracy further again.

The spam identification is very accurate, I have yet to receive any complaints about valid e-mail being blocked.

If you want to have a look through the control panel send me a PM and I will set you up with an account and you can have a look around.