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350-701 Uses Cisco ESA to filter inbound email Practice Question
An organization uses Cisco ESA to filter inbound email. The security team notices that some phishing emails are reaching users despite having an anti-spam policy. Further analysis reveals that the emails are sent from a domain that is gray-listed but not blocked. What should the administrator do to prevent these emails without impacting legitimate emails?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the distinction between anti-spam policies (which classify based on sender reputation and content patterns) and content filters (which allow rule-based actions on specific email attributes), leading candidates to mistakenly choose options that modify the anti-spam policy or rely on post-delivery detection instead of pre-delivery prevention.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create a content filter to quarantine the emails based on malicious URLs or attachment type.
Creating a content filter to quarantine emails based on malicious URLs or attachment type directly addresses the phishing threat without affecting legitimate emails. Since the domain is gray-listed (not blocked), the anti-spam policy considers the sender as suspicious but not malicious; a content filter can inspect the email content for specific indicators of compromise (e.g., known malicious URLs or dangerous attachment types like .exe or .js) and quarantine those emails, bypassing the gray-mail classification.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Disable the Gray Mail feature in the anti-spam policy.
Why it's wrong here
May increase unwanted mail.
- ✓
Create a content filter to quarantine the emails based on malicious URLs or attachment type.
Why this is correct
Targets specific threat content.
- ✗
Enable Retrospective Scanning to detect the phishing emails after delivery.
Why it's wrong here
Does not prevent initial delivery.
- ✗
Add the sender IP address to the SenderBase block list.
Why it's wrong here
May block legitimate emails from same IP.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 350-701 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Cisco certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 350-701 exam.