ITS Enlists New Filtering System to Help Battle Junk e-Mail

Information Technology Services announces the rollout of a new spam-filtering system intended to curb the amount of electronic "junk mail" received by employees and students. Beginning Monday, Nov. 6, all incoming e-mail will be filtered through this new system.

Suspected spam messages will be held in quarantine on the server. Users will receive a daily e-mail notification if any new messages have been quarantined. For each item listed, the user has the opportunity to allow the message to be delivered, to allow the message and all future messages from that sender to be delivered ("whitelist" the sender), or to delete the message permanently. An example of the daily e-mail summary is shown below.

A "click here" link at the bottom of the daily e-mail (shown above) provides access to a Web page where the users can easily manage a large quarantine list by delivering, whitelisting, or deleting a group of selected messages (see image below). Messages in quarantine that are older than 30 days will be automatically deleted by the system.

The Web page shown above includes many options for changing system preferences. ITS has established the recommended settings; therefore, most users can ignore the Preferences tab. However, anyone who would like to explore these options is welcome to do so. Before making any changes, you may wish to contact the appropriate Help Desk to discuss the potential impact on e-mail delivery.

Employees should direct their questions to the ITS Help Desk by e-mail or by phone at ext. 7329.

Students should direct their questions to the Student Help Desk by e-mail, by phone at ext. 7154, or by visiting the Help Desk in the Madigan Library, Room 130.