Email with characters from a blocked language is not blocked

Products

• Messaging Gateway

Issue/Introduction

You have configured blocked languages in the Language tab of a policy group (Administration > Users > Policy Groups). An email is received that contains characters from a blocked language, not triggering the blocked language verdict.

Cause

The email message, as a whole, is not determined to be a disallowed language message.

Resolution

The documentation for this feature includes the following text:

Although the language identification technology employed by SMG to identify the language of a message has a high rate of accuracy, false language identifications can occur. Note that messages identified to be written in a disallowed language are deleted.

Source: Allowing or blocking email based on language

As stated, the technology is considering the characteristics of the entire email message, including message header data. It does not just look for the existence of character types alone, which can result in messages with characters from a blocked language being accepted.