Technical Tip: Spam outbreak protection

Description

This article describes the feature of spam outbreak protection.

Scope

FortiMail.

Solution

FortiMail Outbreak Protection mitigates spam outbreaks involving zero-day messages that have not yet been classified by the FortiGuard Antispam database.

Spam Outbreak Protection must be enabled on an antispam profile. Once active, it temporarily holds suspicious messages for a configurable duration, allowing FortiGuard to update its database and identify the outbreak

The spam outbreak protection period can be configured in CLI and GUI as shown below.

In the CLI:

config system fortiguard antispam
    set outbreak-protection-period
end

In the GUI:

Navigate to System -> FortiGuard -> Antispam -> Spam outbreak protection period.

The time by default is 30.

There is also an option to adjust the sensitivity of Spam Outbreak Protection. A higher sensitivity level means stricter filtering.

To check the email on hold, go to Monitor -> Mail queue -> Spam Outbreak.