MessageLabs FAQ - Image Control Service

An Email Image Control service monitors and controls potentially inappropriate images entering or leaving your organisation.

There are four components included within the MessageLabs Email Image Control service as follows:

• Heuristics scanner (ICA) – uses a combination of algorithms and heuristics to determine whether an image is inappropriate or not
  
• Local approved and blocked image lists – you can add images classified incorrectly to a blocked or approved image list
  
• Global approved and blocked image lists for the Image Control community - MessageLabs adds images classified incorrectly to a global database to take effect for all organizations that have selected this detection method
  
• Approved sender and recipient lists – you approve a sender or recipient (internal or external) to send or receive images
  

This multi-level approach ensures increased accuracy and reduced false positives.

Yes. You can configure the MessageLabs Email Image Control service to scan within MS Office attachments (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint).

Yes. If you wish to search for an email address you will need to type it as it is recorded. Most email addresses are stored in lower case.

The MessageLabs Email Image Control service unpacks attached archive files and scans the image attachments or images within MS Office documents that are archived within them.

The scan order is as follows:

• Approved sender and recipient lists
  
• Local approved and blocked image lists
  
• Global approved and blocked image lists
  
• Image Control heuristics scanner
  
  

This means, for example, that an image approved in a local approved list overrides the heuristics scanner.

It depends on what the image is. If the image is likely to be seen again and is company-specific, add it to your local approved images list. If the image is likely to be seen again and is more generic, rather than company-specific, add the image to your local approved list and also send the image for analysis to add value to the Image Control community. If there is a specific user that receives a large number of images that are analysed incorrectly, but change frequently, add the individual to the approved recipient list.

The ICA (Image Composition Analysis) heuristics scanner should always be used to help monitor and control problem areas, thus enforcing your email security policy within your organization. However, ICA cannot be 100% accurate due to the objectivity of image analysis. The ICA scanner has different levels of accuracy depending the selected sensitivity setting and the nature of your email; you are more likely to have false positives if your organisation is a modelling agency than you are if you work in IT, simply due to the nature of email that is sent and received.

With organisations from around the world submitting images to the Image Control community it is highly likely that many of the more general images that are analysed incorrectly will be added before your organisation sees them.

The Image Control community comprises MessageLabs and other organisations globally who subscribe to the Image Control service. These organisations submit images that have been analysed incorrectly for them and that other organisations may be likely to see. The images are analysed manually and if they are definitely ‘good’ or ‘bad’ they are added to the global database for use within the community.

It is a list of images on a globally available database that may not be detected by Image Control heuristics detection methods, but which are pornographic or offensive in some other way and are therefore always blocked by Image Control scanning service if this detection method is enabled.

This is the MessageLabs detection method that uses ICA artificial intelligence technology to read and analyse image content and intercept suspect material, expanding its own knowledge and understanding of pornographic images with every subsequent scanning.

All MessageLabs services are based on a per user, per month subscription, plus a one-off minimal set-up fee.

You simply pay a fixed monthly cost based on the number of users connected. Each service can be purchased separately or you can bundle multiple services to provide complete security protection.

All pricing quotes are individually tailored for each client’s specific requirements and MessageLabs offers discounts for both scale and multiple services.

To find out more, speak with a sales consultant.