Author Topic: Adding Scan Confirmation on Outgoing Mail from Mac  (Read 3688 times)

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Adding Scan Confirmation on Outgoing Mail from Mac
« on: June 19, 2014, 02:09:08 PM »
Hi

I want Avast to automatically add a statement at the bottom of each sent e-mail stating that the e-mail has been scanned and is virus free - this is to assure my clients that I am responsibly protecting them. I have installed the free version on my Mac and sent some test messages but cannot see such a statement.(I have been using AVG on a PC and it adds the required statement) Am I missing something - any help much appreciated.

Offline specimen9999

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Re: Adding Scan Confirmation on Outgoing Mail from Mac
« Reply #1 on: June 19, 2014, 04:22:24 PM »
I'm sure this will not change your desire to have such message, but consider this:

Those messages serve mostly as ads for AVs, that's what they are, and, security-wise, they are just cosmetic, any reassurance they might give to anyone is false because they can be easily faked, as such people should really stop seeing any sort of security assurance in those, and they shouldn't trust an email just because it says it was scanned with AV X.

Avast does something which might be more useful, Avast! marks the headers (something that is normally hidden in email apps) with something similar to this:

X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 14061801)
X-Antivirus-Status: Clean

This helps with filtering of email made server-side.

But still, this header can be easily be faked also.

Anecdotally, you can just add "This email was scanned using an up-to-date Antivirus"/ "This email was scanned by avast! for mac and found no malware" or similar to your signature.
Really, having the AV writing that message wields no magic power, this 'seal of approval' holds no credibility, nor an email that doesn't have it is less credible for that reason, if the email is found to have a virus then it's blocked, it's up to the receiver to trust their own software they installed for scanning email, not other people's software.
Also, on that subject, most email servers do virus scanning silently (Gmail does it, hotmail does it...), viruses are very rarely transmitted as attachments nowadays, normally it's email messages with links to the web to the viruses (posing as being something legit). Hell, you might even forward that message and have Avats!/AVG/... mark it as scanned (because there is no virus on the message) and you are sending your recipients a doorway to a virus. You can see how those messages serve no purpose except instil a false sense of security which is more harmful.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2014, 05:09:54 PM by specimen9999 »

Offline tumic

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Re: Adding Scan Confirmation on Outgoing Mail from Mac
« Reply #2 on: June 19, 2014, 06:39:00 PM »
First of all - we do not scan outgoing emails i any way as the purpose of avast! is to protect
you against the "evil" outer world, not vice versa.

But even if we would scan outgoing mails, adding such quotes is meaningless (except of
product promotion) as no one can trust such "verified by X to be clean" statements in the mail
itself. You have to scan the content when it arrives, to be sure.

Offline tumic

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Re: Adding Scan Confirmation on Outgoing Mail from Mac
« Reply #3 on: June 19, 2014, 06:44:08 PM »
Avast does something which might be more useful, Avast! marks the headers (something that is normally hidden in email apps) with something similar to this:

X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 14061801)
X-Antivirus-Status: Clean

This helps with filtering of email made server-side.

Actually, this is done only local-side*, we do not modify the emails on the server.

* The headers are inserted before the mail is seen by the mail client, so you can
still configure a rule to i.e. delete infected mails.

Offline specimen9999

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Re: Adding Scan Confirmation on Outgoing Mail from Mac
« Reply #4 on: June 19, 2014, 08:10:34 PM »
Actually, this is done only local-side*, we do not modify the emails on the server.

* The headers are inserted before the mail is seen by the mail client, so you can
still configure a rule to i.e. delete infected mails.

Thanks, I incorrectly assumed there was an outgoing scan.

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Re: Adding Scan Confirmation on Outgoing Mail from Mac
« Reply #5 on: June 19, 2014, 08:40:24 PM »
Hmm, thanks for all that, food for thought...Am I right in any case in assuming Avast does not scan outgoing mail in any case as per tumic's post of 06:39.

Many thanks