CTScleanmail - FAQ's:

• Does the CTScleanmail service add any delay to my email?

• What Virus scanners does the CTScleanmail service use?

• What does CTScleanmail do with my spam?

• Do you Guarantee uptime and availability?

• Can certain users be exempted from virus scanning?

• Where do you get your fresh spam for analysis from?

• What are the system requirements for me to use CTScleanmail?

• Will CTScleanmail work with our existing system?

• We already have desktop virus protection - why do we need CTScleanmail?

Does the CTScleanmail service add any delay to my incoming emails? 

Hardly! The CTScleanmail service may delay your email by a few seconds, but not more than a minute. Email with large attachments, can be delayed up to about a minute or so because of the time it takes to do the scanning for viruses and spam. <top>

What virus scanners does the CTScleanmail service use?

We use multiple commercial scanners. [ClamAV, F-Prot, and Commtouch] This combination of scanners has been selected for their differing approaches to virus detection, which ensures we are capable of catching all types of viruses, past, present and future. For more information about these products please go to our partners page. <top>

What does CTScleanmail do with my spam?

Clearly, the benefit to using a service provider to block spam and virus threats is removing unwanted messages from your network, freeing bandwidth and server processing time. However, if the only option for spam handling is to flag the offending messages and send them into your network, then you have only fixed half of the spam problem. CTScleanmail's solution combines temporary secure storage outside your network with the ability to access, review, and reclaim blocked messages. <top>

Does the CTScleanmail solution guarantee uptime and availability?

CTScleanmail guarantees 99.999 percent service availability and historically has delivered 100 percent availability. Email is a critical method of communication for businesses; a true enterprise-class solution must be unshakable in its reliability. A fully redundant, geographically separate processing center is available 24x7 to process mail should anything happen to the primary server. The system processes millions of messages per week and guarantees no messages get delayed or buried in a disk queue due to in-memory-scanning technology. <top>

Can I remove the CTScleanmail virus checks for certain users?

Sorry, CTScleanmail does not exempt any incoming mail from virus checks. <top>

Where does CTScleanmail get spam for analysis?

To guarantee that we always have a generous supply of spam to analyze, we do all of the following (and more) to ensure a steady flow of spam:

(WARNING: The following actions are guaranteed to generate spam. We strongly suggest you don't try them yourself.)

We ALWAYS "unsubscribe" using links found in spam emails that arrive at our traps. Phony unsubscribe pages are one of many techniques used by spammers to harvest email addresses.

We ALWAYS open our spam email, so spammers can confirm that they reached a valid email address and will send more.

We ALWAYS visit the links found in suspicious email.

We ALWAYS browse the web on a computer with all its ports unprotected so the website can easily interrogate us and determine which domains to send mail harvests attacks against.

We ALWAYS checkout everybody's "webcam".

We ALWAYS sign-up for giveaways, contests, freebies, mailing lists, and anything else we can find on every website we visit.

We ALWAYS use common first and last names as the mailbox name to make it simple for spammers to figure out our email addresses.

We ALWAYS bounce mail directed to mailboxes that do not exist so that spammers can use reverse logic to decipher which addresses are valid. Using this technique they can direct an increased volume of mail to the addresses they determine are valid.

We visit all newsgroups and freely post messages that include a working email address. Newsgroups are another favorite location for spammers to harvest addresses. <top>

What requirements do I need to meet in order to use the CTScleanmail service?

1. You must have your own mail domain, such as mybusiness.com The mail domain is exclusive to your business and is not shared or available to the general public.

2. You must have your own mail server. This server can either be hosted by your ISP, or in-house. However, it must be a server dedicated to e-mails from your mybusiness.com domain.

3. If you do not have your own domain name, or mail server, we can still help. CTScleanmail can put you in touch with one of our partner companies, who will register and host your domain and email server, or your local computer troubleshooter may be able to provide you with a pop box on a CTScleanmail filtered domain name. <top>

Will the CTScleanmail Messaging Service work with our existing mail system?

Yes! No matter what e-mail platform you use, Microsoft Exchange, Outlook, Lotus Notes, or something else, the CTScleanmail Service is 100% compatible! You simply redirect your incoming e-mails to the CTScleanmail Operations Center (NOC) for scanning of viruses, spam and inappropriate content before the e-mails enter your mailbox. <top>

Most of our employees have desktop virus protection, why would we need the CTScleanmail Service?

It is very important to have up-to-date virus protection on the desktop, virus entry points are changing, with an increasing number of viruses entering via the Internet as well as via e-mail. Moreover, the most destructive viruses still enter through unprotected e-mails. The CTScleanmail Service eliminates this threat before it reaches your network. In addition, unlike desktop anti-virus solutions, The CTScleanmail Service does not install onto desktops nor require any additional investment in hardware, software, or administration training. The CTScleanmail Service will work in unison with your existing desktop antivirus solutions. Your existing desktop antivirus solution then becomes another essential layer in providing  [recommended best practice]  a multi-layered approach to your network's security. <top>