Developer(s) | Julian Field |
---|---|
Stable release | 4.83 / March 23, 2011 |
Operating system | Cross-platform |
Type | Mail filter |
License | GPL |
Website | www.mailscanner.info |
MailScanner is an open source e-mail security system for use on Unix e-mail gateways and was first released in 2001. It protects against viruses and spam. It is distributed under the GNU General Public License.
The author, Julian Field, won the 2004 Open Source Award from UKUUG for the product.[1]
Worldwide, the software is estimated by the author to be processing over five billion e-mails per week, with over 1,000,000 downloads. ISPs and mobile telephone networks are included in this list of users.
More recently, anti-phishing measures have been introduced. The software spots attempts at obfuscating URLs (for example, to lure the user into thinking they are signing into their bank, when in reality they are using an imposter web site) and modifies the e-mail with a suitable warning.
Contents |
MailScanner is implemented in around 50,000 lines of Perl. It links with other software packages in order to fulfill its duties:
As with any complex software platform, performance results can vary wildly depending on a wide variety of factors. That said, anecdotal evidence suggests that a quad Xeon PC with 2 GB of RAM and 15 kRPM SCSI disks can process something in the area of 2.2 million messages per day.[2]