Overview

FTGate Email Filtering System

FTGate provides comprehensive filtering capabilities to protect your email system from spam, viruses, and other malicious content. The filtering system is built around policies – configurable rule sets that determine how incoming mail is processed.

Policy Structure

Domain-Level Control: Each domain in your system can either:

Have its own dedicated filtering policy with custom settings
Share a policy with other domains for consistent filtering across multiple domains

This flexible approach allows you to tailor security measures to different organizational needs while maintaining centralized control where appropriate.

Filtering Capabilities

The system can filter messages based on multiple criteria:

Email Address Filtering: Block or allow messages based on sender addresses, supporting both individual addresses and domain-wide rules.

Content Analysis: Examine message body text for suspicious patterns, keywords, or characteristics commonly associated with spam or malicious content.

Attachment Screening: Inspect file attachments for potentially dangerous file types, embedded malware, or suspicious content.

Policy Sharing and Training

When multiple domains share a filtering policy, they benefit from:

Unified Settings: All domains use identical filtering rules and thresholds
Shared Learning: UBEBlock (Unsolicited Bulk Email blocking) training data is shared across all domains using the policy, improving detection accuracy over time
Consistent Protection: Ensures uniform security standards across your organization

SMTP-Level Filtering

Filters can be applied directly at the SMTP protocol level, allowing the system to accept or reject messages before they enter your mail system. This includes:

Black Lists: Automatically reject mail from known spam sources, malicious domains, or blocked IP addresses.

White Lists: Always accept mail from trusted senders, bypassing other filtering rules to prevent false positives.

Content Restrictions:

Prohibited Words: Block messages containing specific terms or offensive language
Prohibited Phrases: Block messages containing longer text strings or common spam phrases

This SMTP-level filtering provides an efficient first line of defense, reducing server load by rejecting unwanted mail before processing.