Managing Spam
CiCS have introduced an email security appliance called IronPort which manages more effectively the ever-increasing barrage of unwanted spam.
In an average month we currently receive into the University approximately 130 million email messages, approximately 97% of these are rejected. The vast majority are rejected as spam with the remainder being rejected as having inappropriate content.
Avoiding Spam
We have found that there are some simple steps that you can take to reduce the amount of spam mail received.
- Avoid using your University email address when signing up to external services.
- Avoid displaying your email address on public websites such as forums. Where possible disguise your email address, for example name@REMOVE-THIS.sheffield.ac.uk
- Do not reply to spam emails, doing so will confirm that someone is reading the emails and make you a target for further spam.
- If you receive a spam email delete it. Do not click on any links or images contained within the email.
The factsheet below has further information on avoiding spam.
Messages marked as ****SPAM****
A small proportion of mail is marked as spam but still delivered. This is done to ensure that legitimate emails with suspicious qualities are not accidentally rejected by an automated system.
You may want to set up a simple filter that moves these messages to a different folder, which you can review and delete messages from separately.