Overview
Recently, we added a
Technical Tips article entitled
Blocking incoming emails via Domino 6 Rules. In it, we discussed explicitly the issue of the SOBIG.F virus that was appearing around the world and how a simple attachment rule could block it.
Technical Article
If you want a really comprehensive, step-by-step overview of the spam preventing capacity of Domino 6, there is a really good article entitled Preventing spam mail in Notes/Domino 6. The topics covered are server mail rules, DNS blacklist filters, relay control and enforcement, mail journaling, and user based spam prevention.
IBM Redbook
There is an official IBM Redbook (Abstract) entitled Lotus Domino 6 spam Survival Guide for IBM eServer that gives a nice overview of rules, etc including overall architecture. Even if you don't use eServer, this Redbook is very informative and not relevant exclusively to eServer owners.
Documentation
It's also important to read the help manual that comes with the server. Check the help directory on your server for the administrator's help database. Also, check out the client side help database to learn about the mail rules. Here's a link to the 6.0 help if you can't find it for some reason.
A cautionary note
One thing I will tell you is that when you setup rules, you can choose 'AND' or 'OR' for multiple line items within that rule. The default is 'AND' which I find to be very irritating because if you specify a subject contains 'xyz' OR a subject contains 'abc' and you accidentally write that as subject contains 'xyz' AND subject contains 'abc', you will pretty much kill that rule from working the way you want. Whenever I add more line items to a rule, I double check that I have selected 'OR'.
Results
Our implementation of these features prevents a lot of spam from getting through but they are still very good at sneaking things through (mostly via misspellings) but overall, it has been an improvement for us after implementing these features. There are a variety of third party products that are more robust but just the fact that Domino and Notes have these features puts a nice dent into the problem.
3rd Party Products
We put together a list of products to prevent spam based on research and recommendations. We will leave it up to you to decide which works best for you. If the blurbs about them sound like marketing, it's because we pulled it right off their site. The percentages came from them, we haven't confirmed any of this data.
McAfee® SpamKiller® for Mail Servers
McAfee® SpamKiller® for Mail Servers provides unmatched spam protection and performance for Microsoft® Exchange and Lotus® Domino mail servers, with an out-of-box detection rate of up to 95%, and a minimal false positive rate under 0.5%. By keeping your network free of spam, McAfee SpamKiller ensures high user productivity, enforces HR policies against inappropriate content, conserves network bandwidth, and keeps spam-related security risks to a minimum.
spamJam (by Granite Software)
spamJam for Lotus Notes & Domino is an adaptable filter designed to help administrators and end users detect and prevent spam. spamJam combines the best attributes of a centrally administered configuration with the flexibility of end user rule definition. End user message recovery is simple and immediately effective. This combined spamJam approach produces a system that administrators and users can trust to evaluate email effectively without the danger of losing or delaying important email.
CMS Praetor for Lotus Domino
Praetor is a tool to help Lotus Domino sites fight and reduce a growing Internet messaging problem - objectionable and destructive email. This includes unsolicited commercial advertisements (spam), virus-infected attachments, offensive content, and confidential company data.
AppRiver’s SpamTrap safely removes over 97% of all spam and malicious content from your inbound message stream by using all spam identification techniques. To keep up with Spammers, our SpamLab operates around the clock adding new rules every 2-3 minutes so your protection works like you do every day!
Mail Warden Pro 6.0 is Email Server Security Software designed for any size, or type of organization and that will work with any SMTP capable system, including MS Exchange and Lotus Domino email servers.With Mail Warden Pro 6.0 you don’t have to worry about additional product add-ons, elaborate customizations, or the COSTS associated with most enterprise security solutions. Everything you need to protect your business against Viruses, Spam, Explicit Content, and Reckless Employees is included in One Affordable Solution!