The above table depicts real time greylisting in action.

Most email content scanning systems both remote or locally installed rely on keyword / phrase pattern mathcing with the more advanced solutions utlising more intelligent checksum based pattern analysis based on snapshots of what Spam email generally looks like.

MailWash uses both keyword / phrase based pattern matching as well as checksum based content matching but it's most powerful tool in the battle to fight Spam is accomplished by the use of "Grey listing" technlogy.

Grey listing works by analysing how a remote mail server behaves rather than blindly accepting the message and then performing a number of tests on it. Most legitimate email servers are set to send a message and if not successful, to queue that message, wait for a specified interval of time and then attempt to send the message again.

Mail servers used by spammers however, are often set to simply 'mail cannon" the outbound messages with no retry queue or ability to resend should something go wrong with the tranmission. This hit or miss approach is the concept on which grey listing technology is built.

When a legitimate email source sends an email to MailWash, our servers send a temporary reject message to the originator saying "yes you've reached us, but we don't want your message just yet". MailWash then takes a snapshot of the remote mail server's details and adds the information to the 'grey list".

If the remote server is legitimate, it will hold the temporarily rejected mail in the outbound queue until the next retry time. (Usually 5 to 10 minutes). at which time it will contact MailWash again and say "Can I send it now?" to which MailWash will respond with "Yes you can" and the mail will be delivered. The result of the successful transaction will be cached so that the next time the same mail server contacts MailWash, there will be no delay, the mail will be instantanesouly delivered.

If the remote mail server is used as a Spam cannon, the server will contact MailWash and the same process will take place however because Spam servers don't retry, when MailWash says "yes you've reached us, but we don't want your message just yet", the remote Spam server will usually just terminate the connection and not bother retrying again. Alternaitvely if it doesn't respond appropriately to the temporary reject and attempts to blindly keep re sending the mail, it will be automatically blacklisted.

This technique results in an incredibly effective method to prevent Spam from reaching the MailWash servers and then being passed onto your network. The same grey listing technique is also effective in fighting virus infections as most email based infections come from infected desktop computers with inbuilt mail servers that behave like Spam cannons.

For legitimate sites with poorly configured mail servers which behave like Spam Cannon servers, MailWash can easily white list the originating mail server to prevent grey listing entries from taking place.

Why use a managed email solution?

The rising cost of SPAM

SPAM, Virus Infection and Phishing attacks pose a huge risk to corporations Australia Wide with a conservative estimate on total cost hovering around the AU $40,000,000 mark on lost productivity weekly.

As with most areas of the IT industry, keeping abreast of the techniques used by Virus authors, SPAM senders has become a full time position for many IT professionals. For most network administrators an already hectic workload coupled with these new responsibilites results in "holes" left in what may have been an otherwise fortifed network environment.

MailWash helps fill these holes by providing "set and forget" style messaging security which allows you peace of mind. With an easy to use web based administrative interface, you always maintain total control of your mail with the ability to release quarantined messages, train the MailWash SPAM filters and create your own custom white / black lists.

At MailWash our only focus is messaging security so you can devote time to other areas of your IT infrastructure more effectively. While you concentrate on other areas of your IT environment, MailWash proactively works in the background, protecting the messaging layer of your network.

Using a server side model, MailWash requires no client PC software installation further reducing the need for the site administrator to devote precious resources to a non centralised model of messaging security.

MailWash is comitted to monitoring industry trends and implementing the most emergent technologies in the battle to fight unsolicted email.