LFC Hosting offers advanced SPAM filtering free-of-charge with all of our business-oriented hosting plans! We use SpamAssassin, the latest, most widely used and continually updated SPAM scanning software. A leading, highly configurable mail filter, SpamAssassin virtually eliminates SPAM (also known as unsolicited commercial e-mail), an invaluable tool to increase the efficiency of your business on today's Internet and one scarcely available with competing services. Finally, we have fully integrated SpamAssassin with our own LFC Control Panel, allowing you to optionally customize it through a familiar interface.

With its rule base, SpamAssassin uses a wide range of local and network tests including header analysis, text analysis, blacklists, and more to identify "SPAM" signatures, making it harder for spammers to identify one aspect, which they can craft their messages to work around. Moreover, these tests are constantly updated automatically to adapt to the latest SPAM trends.

Once identified, mail can be either automatically deleted before it even hits your mailbox at all (you won't even know you got it), or optionally tagged as SPAM, allowing you to customize your mail client application to either delete the SPAM, or filter it into a special folder. This is useful in the event that you need to retrieve a message from your "quarantine" that was originally deemed SPAM.

With a click of a button, you can enable or disable SPAM filtering on each domain and even e-mail account individually if you so choose. There is no configuration required; SpamAssassin accomplishes filtering without knowing the details of your mail accounts, mailing list memberships, etc.; there is no maintenance required.

LFC Hosting has also built a state-of-the-art, fast, and easy-to-use interface for SpamAssassin's native variety of optional configuration parameters, fully integrated with your LFC Hosting Control Panel allowing our clients to optionally customize it through a familiar interface on each of their domain names or individual e-mail accounts.

SpamAssassin assigns a SPAM risk factor to each message by looking for the common characteristics of SPAM. E-mail messages that exceed a specific threshold are considered SPAM. Through the Spam Filtering Administration area of your control panel, you are optionally able to configure this threshold for SPAM to be flagged as well as deleted altogether, elect to have the subject of SPAM changed, setup whitelists and blacklists (e-mail addresses from which all messages are accepted or rejected by default, respectively), block e-mail worms, customize the length and location (header or body) of the report that SpamAssassin adds to messages deemed SPAM (telling you exactly why they were), configure a variety of other advanced options and headers, and manually alter any other SpamAssassin configuration option! Most competing services do not provide customization capabilities beyond customizing the actual text-based SpamAssassin configuration file (requiring advanced technical knowledge), if at all. None match LFC's level of automation!

Nolisting

LFC Hosting employs a common technique called "Nolisting" on all accounts by default, in order to reduce the amount of SPAM (unsolicited e-mail) received by our customers.

In technical terms, the DNS for domain names hosted on our network is configured with a special, non-existing primary MX entry (ie. mail server) and a working secondary mail server. This way, software that attempts to deliver e-mail by contacting the primary mail server only will fail. Legitimate mail servers automatically try the secondary mail server, whereas spammers frequently use custom or poorly written software that will not attempt to contact the secondary mail server when the primary one fails, and instead just give up.


LFC Hosting also uses RBLs (Real Time Blacklists) to help fight SPAM.