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E-mail Virus and Spam Protection

E-mail Virus Scanning Policy

E-mail viruses are a major problem world-wide. Drake University fights viruses by installing Sophos Anti-Virus on your computer and by scanning all e-mail messages before they get to your computer. Both the anti-virus service on your computer and the one on the mailserver receive frequent updates about new viruses that have been launched.

In general, messages with one or more attachments are scanned for evidence of a virus. If one of the attachments is found to contain a virus, the entire message is silently deleted. Messages that have an attachment that cannot be scanned, for example, it is password-protected, are held in a queue where they must be individually inspected and then manually released to the recipient or deleted.

Getting Information about Viruses and Hoaxes

On the web site for Sophos, our Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam vendor, there is considerable helpful information about viruses, trojans and worms.  The site also permits you to check out reports of viruses that you may receive.  Many e-mail messages containing dire warnings about viruses, trojans and worms are simply hoaxes.

Setting Up a Spam Filter

The Office of Information Technology has implemented Sophos PureMessage, a service that computes a spam probability for each message coming from the Internet, based upon the characteristics of its headers and content. This service makes it possible for you to set up message filters on your e-mail client that will transfer suspect messages out of your INBOX to other folders (sidelining), either on the server or on your computer, for later examination and deletion.

IMPORTANT! Remember to check routinely the folder into which you have sidelined messages. There may be some messages that you want and must deal with on a timely basis.

Filters would need to be set up for both office and home computers on which you are running a desktop client, such as Eudora or Outlook, since the filter is stored on the computer where the desktop client resides. Filters on the web mail client need only be set up once, since they reside on the web mail server. Complete instructions for setting up simple filters with Eudora, Outlook and our web mail are available.

Be Wary of Unsolicited E-mail!

  • Do not open attachments you are not expecting.  No matter how interesting or legitimate they look, they may contain a virus which is so new that it has gone undetected.
  • Do not click on links inside unsolicited e-mail messages.  They may trigger code that will infect and/or damage your computer system.
  • Do not provide any personal information requested through e-mail messages that are unsolicited.  For example, a bank or on-line trader would never ask you to validate your online credentials or personal information via an e-mail.  When in doubt, reach for the phone or go directly to the main web site for the company, without clicking on a link in an e-mail address.  Type the address into your browser by hand.
  • Do not be fooled about who the sender of a message appears to be.  "From addresses" are easy to make up and company logos are easily copied.