EmailAtSymbolNormally when you apply a service pack, you’re just getting a batch of stability patches and bug fixes mixed in with some small feature enhancements, most times nothing to exciting. Microsoft Exchange Service Pack 2 however offered one huge addition that can be easily overlooked if you are not paying attention.  The IMF (Intelligent Message Filter) version 2.0 is a greatly enhanced spam and mailbox protection system.   If you installed service pack 2 on exchange, you need to ensure you have properly configured the IMF, it is not uncommon admins may overlook this.

In a nutshell, the IMF simply looks at inbound messages, it assigns an SCL (Spam Confidence Level) rating to that message.  This is decided based on some predefined rules that are available as updates through Microsoft update every few weeks.  You can also customize these rules which can be kind of tricky, or you can use a slick tool which I’ll discuss in a subsequent article.

The IMF is setup in a couple of relatively painless steps where you can determine what is done to messages that meet a certain threshold.  Messages can be rejected or can be dumped into a users junk-email folder. 

This article at amset info provides a great overview of how to get all of this initially setup and configured.

After toying around with it for sometime, we have seen our email volumes drop about 45%.  This email doesn’t even hit our storage and is returned instantly to the sender with a customized message, very similar to a non delivery report.

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