E-mail Spam

What is E-mail Spam?

It is also known as "bulk e-mail" or "junk e-mail". Spam is referred to any e-mail that is sent from a generic email address. Its purpose is to advertise a product, web site, or company. Recently there has been a fast increase in spam around the world. 80%-85% of world wide emails are spam. Spam is getting harder to detect due to the massive amount of "Zombie Servers". A "Zombie Server" is a regular computer that has been infected by spam and is now used to create and send spam to others. Spam now also uses randomly generated subjects with conversational style messages. If we were to block those, then all emails would be blocked. All these factors make it hard to prevent all spam from entering your mailbox.

Sometimes a malicious spammer or infected computer can send messages spoofing the address as-if it were from @byui.edu. Messages like this might bounce back to a student or faculty member making it look like THEY were the ones sending out spam. This is common, and though we do the best we can to block such emails, some will continue to get through.

 

 

What to do if you get Spam.

There are two ways you can go about to help prevent spam. The best way is to manage your own Safe/Blocked Senders List. With this list you can enter the email addresses of those who are allows to enter your email address and those who are not. Reporting spam is also another way to prevent spam.

 

How do I Manage the Safe/Blocked Senders list?

1) When you receive and open a digest message from BYUI_Junkmail_Server@byui.edu listing the quarantined spam you will see four links.

 

 

2) Click on "Manage Safe/Blocked Senders List"

3) You will be directed to the ProofPoint Profile Management. Here you can manage which addresses you want to allow and which ones you want to block.

4)On the left side of the screen you have your personal setting. The safe list and the Block list.

 

 

5) On the top of the page you will see a toolbar. To add new address to the lists just click on new.

 

 

6)Enter the e-mail address in the text box.

 

 

Click on the Manage Safe/Blocked Senders List. This will take you to the Proof Protection Server. On the left side of the screen you will see two options, a Safe Senders List and a Blocked Senders List. To add an email address to either one you click on the desired list and on the tool bar on top you click new. All you do now is enter the e-mail address and you have blocked, or added someone to your own spam blocker.

 

How do I Report E-mails Spam?

Reporting spam this way is most efficient because it gives all the information about the email which outlook provides. This information is then used to effectively prevent the spam from future attempts.

 

1) Open a new blank email message in Outlook .

2) Under the Message tab, click on the "attach item" button which is represented in yellow in the image bellow.

3) Browse through your messages and select the Digest Message with the quarantined spam.

4) Send the email to reportspam@byui.edu.