Spam
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What product/tool is the Law School using to scan email for SPAM and viruses?

1. The University of Miami School of Law uses SecureComputing’s (formerly Ciphertrust) Ironmail product for SPAM and virus mitigation.

 

How is the SPAM filtering being done?

1. Each message is broken down into separate components and analyzed for viruses, content and sender authenticity
2. If the message is “clean”, it is reassembled and delivered to the recipient(s)
3. The message is blocked if any one of the following criteria are true:
   • It is infected with an email virus
   • The sender is a known SPAMMER
   • The message is not addressed to someone at the Law School (i.e. the recipient’s email address does not end in students.law.miami.edu)
   • The recipient’s email address does not exist at the Law School (LDAP reconciliation checks to make sure the email address exists at the Law School. This helps ward off dictionary attacks where a SPAMMER sends mail to random addresses at the Law School. i.e. abcd@students.law.miami.edu, abcde@students.law.miami.edu)
   • It is an obvious SPAM email
4. If the system cannot determine if the message is “clean” or SPAM, then it is placed in the recipient’s quarantine. You, the recipient, receive an end user quarantine report which allows you to delete, release and/or whitelist the message.

 

Why is it likely that I will continue to receive some SPAM?

SPAM (also known as UCE – unsolicited commercial email) equates to big dollars for the people who generate it. SPAMMERS exhaust tremendous resources not just generating SPAM but learning the methods by which products like Ironmail and Spamassassin use to block these messages. Much like computer viruses and Trojans, industry solutions are typically a step behind the attacker/SPAMMER – when a new virus, Trojan or SPAM message hits the Internet, industry specialists must dissect the code used in creating the attack before re-writing virus definitions, SPAM dictionaries or patches to combat the attack.

In short, with the current technology, it is impossible to completely eradicate SPAM from the environment. It is possible to reduce it to the point that using email is not an uncomfortable prospect.

 

What should I do if I receive SPAM?

Please send an email message to the help desk (help@law.miami.edu) copying the SPAM message into the body of the message. If you receive a SPAM message, we must receive notification within 12 hours of receipt.

 

What should I do to reduce the amount of SPAM I receive in my Law School account?

As stated previously, there is nothing that will completely eradicate SPAM from the networking environment, but there are several steps you can take to help minimize it:

1. Protect your email address as closely as you protect your system password(s). Try not to enter your email address onto websites unless it is a website that you trust. Even then, check to see if the website has an “opt out” option – this will tell the company running the website that you do not want email correspondences from them or their affiliates. Recent studies from CNN show that people who ignore this rule begin receiving SPAM only 24 hours after entering their email address on a website.
2. Use your Law school email address for Law school related issues and your personal email address for personal issues.
3. Do not open email attachments from people you do not know. Email viruses and Trojans often send a full listing of all the email addresses in an organization back to the virus author. The author then sells these email addresses to the highest bidder/SPAMMER.
4. Be wary of visiting unknown or suspicious websites. As with email viruses, websites can also host a number of compromises that both wreak havoc on your workstation and send information like email addresses back to the website author.
5. If you receive a SPAM message, DO NOT CLICK THE “OPT OUT” link. Rather than removing your email address from their lists, SPAMMERS use this technique to harvest email addresses from unsuspecting users.

 

What email gets scanned?

Any email sent from the Internet to anyStudent@students.law.miami.edu will be scanned. Any email sent to your personal (AOL, Gmail, Bellsouth, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) or business email accounts will not be scanned.

End User Quarantine Reports

 

What is a quarantine report?

A quarantine report is an email sent to each user at the Law school listing all the emails currently stored in quarantine on the Law School’s SPAM filters. The quarantine will look something like the figure below. Clicking on the message ID (circled in aqua) will release the message from quarantine and deliver it to your INBOX. Clicking on the web link (circled in red) will start your browser and open a page listing all the messages in your quarantine.

How often are quarantine reports sent?

Quarantine reports are sent out every 8 hours beginning at midnight each day of the week.

 

Why am I receiving multiple quarantine reports?

There are currently two devices scanning email for the Law School: mx-01.law.miami.edu and mx-02.law.miami.edu. They are configured to work independently should one go offline. They are also configured to work in coordination with another in two respects:

1. They share user whitelists.
2. They both scan for all email sent to the Law school (i.e. anyStudent@students.law.miami.edu).

Quarantine report management is handled independently by each device. Accordingly, you will receive two reports every 8 hours—one from mx-01.law.miami.edu and one from mx-02.law.miami.edu. Again, if you whitelist a sender on one box, that information will be synchronized on the second box (synchronization occurs every hour).

 

Should I bookmark quarantine reports?

Do not bookmark the web links you receive in your quarantine reports. Each web link is created every 8 hours and is unique. The link published in the latest quarantine report you receive is inclusive (i.e. it will include all of the quarantined messages from prior quarantine reports).

 

What is whitelisting?

Whitelisting is the process by which a sender’s emails bypass the functions blocking or quarantining the sender’s email. Whitelisting can be done on a user by user basis or for the entire Law School (global whitelist). In other words, janedoe@anywhere.com can have her emails whitelisted for anyone at the Law School (global) or for a specific user or group of users at the Law school. User based whitelisting is managed by each user; global whitelisting is managed by the Law School IT department.

 

How do I whitelist a sender?

When you receive a quarantine report (see figure below) take note of the information in the “Sender” column. If the sender is someone whose message should not be quarantined for any reason, click on the link above the message. In the case of the figure below, the appropriate link would be:
https://myspam-01.law.miami.edu:443/urq/urqMailList.do?method=processMail&53b80860d4d0f9f81aba50f904d035f34fe6042f00000000000000090424
Note: DO NOT BOOKMARK THE WEB LINKS ON YOUR QUARANTINE REPORTS. EACH QUARANTINE REPORT HAS DIFFERENT WEB LINKS.

When you click on the link, your browser will open a page similar to the one below:

For each message listed you have three options as to how you want to handle it:

1. Release the message and whitelist the sender (The message will be released from quarantine and delivered to your INBOX. Future emails from that sender will NOT be quarantined).
2. Release the message but do not whitelist the sender (The message will be released from quarantine and delivered to your INBOX. Future emails from that sender may be quarantined).
3. Delete the message

Click on the button in the appropriate column for each message (release, delete, whitelist). If you want to release a message and whitelist a sender, click the button for both columns.

Once you are done, click on the submit button circled in red above. For instructions on deleting all the messages in your quarantine, check out the question below (how do I delete multiple messages in my quarantine report).

 

What do all the options mean in the quarantine reports?

There are three actions you can take based on the options in the quarantine report (circled in red in the figure below):

1. Release the message from quarantine (As stated, this will release the message from quarantine and deliver it to your INBOX)
2. Release the message from quarantine and whitelist the sender (The message will be released. Future emails from the sender will not be placed in quarantine)
3. Delete the message

If you wish to delete or release or whitelist and release ALL the messages in your quarantine report, click on the appropriate button at the top of each column (circled in red in the figure below). This will perform the requested action on all the messages in quarantine.

Once you are done, click the [Submit] button.

How do I delete multiple messages in my quarantine report?

Simply click on the Delete button (circled in red in the figure below) then click the [Submit] button at the bottom of the report. This will delete all the messages in your quarantine report. To release multiple messages in your quarantine report, click on the Release button to the left of the Delete button, then click [Submit]. This will release all the messages from quarantine and deliver them to your INBOX.

May I request a sender to be whitelisted prior to a quarantine report being generated?

You may request that a sender be whitelisted prior to a quarantine report being generated. Simply call or email the help desk with your request and a help desk ticket will be generated. FYI, whitelists generated in this manner can only be created globally, not for a specific user. In other words, any email sent from the whitelisted sender can be sent to anyone at the Law School.