Dealing with Spam Mail

for Students for Faculty for Others

Spam mail is becoming an ever increasing problem as more and more mail gets sent out indiscriminately to countless email addresses. To deal with this problem, the University has taken the following steps to help you with spam mail:

System sorts all mail into categories, moves to specific folder and adds labels in the Subject Header to give you an indication as to what kind of mail it might be:

Mail which the system deems as spam (based on suspicious patterns detected in those mails), the system automatically moves to "Junk Email" folder, flags with the inclusion of the word [SPAM] in the Subject and deletes after 30 days.
If the system is not sure but thinks the mail might be junk, the system automatically moves to "Junk Email" folder and deletes after 30 days.

Besides checking for spam, system also checks your mail for virus. Attachments will be deleted if the mail is detected as virus or malware. If the mail attachment is deleted, a malware detection message will be displayed.

These services are provided by Microsoft, and individual support (exclusion settings, etc.) is not possible.

What Is SPAM?

SPAM is another word for junk mail―mail that is sent to anyone unlucky enough to have his or her address on the mailing list of a spammer. SPAM mail takes a number of forms, some of which are listed below.

Mail promoting products or services.
Mail from any source you are unfamiliar with.
Mail that you do not want to receive.

Due to the ease in which spammers can obtain lists of mail addresses and the inexpensiveness of sending out great volumes of such mail, SPAM has become a world-wide problem.

Some SPAM, known as PHISHING, lures people to sites that trick visitors into typing in their password or other private information. Another type of spam mail lures people into dating sites or other such online communities of ill-repute.

Not only can such spam compromise a user's security, the sheer volume of spam mail can easily fill your mail program to capacity if you do not take preventative measures.

Back to Index Back to Top