Computing Security
SOU Spam Firewall
SOU Information Technology (IT) provides a Barracuda 400 Spam Firewall which dramatically reduces the amount of spam delivered to your email inbox. The Barracuda filters both the Faculty/Staff, and Student email systems. It also scans for viruses in email attachments. The system uses a number of sophisticated methods to identify spam. Each day the system is automatically updated with the latest spam “fingerprints” which are similar to virus definition files. These fingerprints are just one of the methods it uses to identify spam. See Barracuda Spam Firewall Technical Details.
Most people will just be happy that they are getting a lot less spam, and won't need to interact with the spam firewall at all. Others may want to take advantage of some of the features listed below.
Guarding against false positives
A false positive is a legitimate email that gets discarded as spam. The spam firewall uses very sophisticated methods to detect spam and won't often make this mistake. However there are some instances when it could happen. For example faculty or students in classes where they might be discussing sex or prescription drugs. The spam filter may see certain keywords in these emails that cause it to think they are spam. To avoid this problem read the next two sections carefully. Note that on campus email, including email between faculty/staff and students, is not filtered by the Barracuda.
Quarantined mail
The spam firewall classifies mail into following categories:
- "Not Spam" which is delivered to you normally.
- "Definitely Spam" which is discarded, you'll never see it.
- "Maybe Spam" is handled differently for students and faculty/staff:
- Students will receive these emails with a "[SPAM]" prefix. Most email software can be configured to handle these emails differently, deleting them or placing them in a special folder for later review.
- Faculty and Staff have two levels of "Maybe Spam". "Probably Not Spam" is delivered with a "[SPAM]" prefix. "Probably Is Spam" is held in a quarantine on the Barracuda. Each day you will get a message from the Barracuda showing the emails that have been quarantined. This message will have a link that will take you to the Barracuda web page where you will be able to release or delete emails. Released emails will get delivered to you normally. See Managing your Quarantine to learn more about your quarantine.
Personal Whitelists
You can maintain your own list of trusted addresses that you know won't send you spam. If the spam firewall mistakenly marks an email as spam you can choose to whitelist the sender so that it won't happen again. See Managing your Whitelist to learn more about your whitelist.
What about GroupWise Junk Mail handling?
The Barracuda makes GroupWise Junk Mail handling unnecessary. If you've already configured your options for GroupWise Junk Mail handling you won't have to make any changes. You should just notice that your junk mail folder is no longer full of spam. If you have setup GroupWise Junk Mail handling to put everything in your junk mail folder that is not from someone in your address book, you may find that you can now turn off this feature. GroupWise Rules can be written put "[SPAM]" tagged emails to be automatically moved to your junk mail folder.
What about the Student E-Mail System?
The Barracuda will be protecting the student system as well as the faculty and staff system. Students who still feel they are receiving excessive spam emails are encouraged to contact the Student Help Desk. SOU IT is committed to take every possible action to reduce the amount of spam that makes it to your inbox.
