Anti-Spyware Software

ALSO CALLED: Antispyware, Antispyware Software, and Anti-Spy Software

DEFINITION

A spam cocktail (or anti-spam cocktail) is the use of several different technologies in combination to successfully identify and minimize spam. The use of multiple mechanisms increases the accuracy of spam identification and reduces the number of false positives. A spam cocktail puts each e-mail message through a series of tests that provides a numeric score showing how likely the message is to be spam. Scores are computed and the message is assigned a probability rating. For example, it may be determined that a message has 85% probability that it is spam. E-mail administrators can create rules that govern how the messages are handled based on their scores; the highest scores may be deleted, medium scores may quarantined, and lower scores may be delivered but marked with a spam warning.A spam cocktail commonly includes several of the following identification methods, which may be weighted differently for message scoring:Machine learning: Implementing sophisticated computer algorithms.