Overview

Emails from a whitelisted sender are being classified as spam.

Environment

Applies to any version of GFI MailEssentials.

Root Cause

GFI MailEssentials processes the emails according to a pre-established order:

1. SMTP Level Filtering (IP Blocklist, Directory Harvesting, IP DNS Block List, Greylist).
2. Security and Antivirus modules.
3. Anti-spam modules according to their priority list.

This issue happens when a filtering engine that has a higher priority than the Whitelist filter is blocking this email:

You can find this section in MailEssentials Portal > Anti-Spam > Filter Priority.

Resolution

Whitelisted emails can be blocked if they contain malware since the Email Security engines have a higher priority than the anti-spam filters and the whitelist. Check that blocked emails do not violate Email Security rules.

Note: There are no "whitelist" applicable for "Email Security" modules; if an email has malware it will always be blocked.

Ensure that the anti-spam filter scanning order is set so that the Whitelist runs before other filters that are blocking the desired email. For more information refer to Sorting anti-spam filters by priority.

Confirmation

If the blocked emails do not violate security rules, it should be sent successfully.