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Spam Firewall

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Overview

WesternU’s spam firewall uses a variety of technologies to detect and filter spam. It provides services for all westernu.edu accounts. The spam firewall can take one of four actions for each message it processes:

  • Allow – The message is delivered to your inbox because message is not detected as spam or the sender is on your whitelist.
  • Tag – The message is delivered to your inbox with the subject pre-pended with “[BULK]”. This message could be spam based on the content.
  • Quarantine -The message is quarantined on the spam firewall and not delivered to your inbox. These messages are likely spam. You can review your quarantine and release any messages that are not spam to your inbox.
  • Block – The message is from a know spam source, has know spam or scam patterns, or contained a virus. The message discarded with no notification to the sender or receiver.

 

You can learn more about the functions and settings of the spam firewall by going to the Spam Firewall User’s Guide (68K pdf file). Or you can see if your questions are among those answered below.

Below are answers to questions you may have. Please feel free to e-mail the helpdesk if you have a question that isn’t listed here.

FAQs

How do I access my quarantine and change my settings on the spam firewall?

Navigate to https://smtpgate.westernu.edu

 

What is my username and password?

You login to the Spam Firewall using the same username and password you use for your e-mail.

 

I don’t want to see the daily quarantine notification. How can I stop this?

  1. Login to your spam quarantine (https://smtpgate.westernu.edu).
  2. Click on the PREFERENCEStab.
  3. Click on Quarantine Settings.
  4. Set the Quarantine Notification Interval to Never.
  5. Click on the Save Changes button.

 

Can I turn off spam filtering for my account if I do not want spam filtering?

Yes.
  1. Login to your spam quarantine (https://smtpgate.westernu.edu).
  2. Click on the PREFERENCEStab.
  3. Click on Spam Settings
  4. Set the Enable Spam Filtering option to No
  5. Click on the Save Changesbutton.

 

I am constantly getting advertisements from this (discount, electronics, travel, etc.) firm. How can I stop them?

Many companies send out advertisements to their customers. These messages are generally not considered spam. They can be annoying nonetheless. Adding the sender to your blacklist should block further messages sent to you. Please note the following regarding blacklists:
  • If you enter a full email address, such as johndoe@yahoo.com, just that user is specified. If you enter just a domain, such as yahoo.com, all users in that domain are specified.
  • If you enter a domain such as acme.com, all subdomains are also included, such as accounts.acme.com and marketing.acme.com. If all advertisements come from marketing.acme.com, just blacklist marketing.acme.com. If you blacklist all of acme.com them you could miss an important message from accounts.acme.com.
  • Internal e-mail from Western University is not filtered by the spam firewall and will not be affected by any blacklist or whitelist entries.

 

Why do I sometimes get e-mail that is obviously spam?

Spammers are constantly changing their techniques to get around spam filters. It is almost impossible to predict what techniques spammers will employ next. In addition, different spammers use different techniques. The spam firewall is constantly learning new spammer techniques to keep up to date.

 

I received two spam e-mails that were the same. One message showed up in my Inbox and the other showed up in my quarantine. How is this possible?

Although the messages looked the same to you, the message could have appeared different to the spam firewall. Many spammers send out thousands of messages from different sources that look the same but are slightly different in hopes that a few will get through spam firewalls.

 

I keep getting the exact same type of spam. Can I submit it for review?

Yes. Please send your messages to the Helpdesk. Please include the headers of the message if possible.

 

An acquaintance of mine is sending me a file but I never receive it. What could be the problem?

There are two possibilities caused by the spam firewall.
  1. The file could contain a virus. The spam firewall discards any e-mail that contains a know virus.
  2. The file attachment type is blocked because viruses and other malicious code often spread this way. Some file types are quarantined and others are blocked. Any e-mail with an exe, pif, scr, or vbs attachment will be discarded. File attachments such as bat and reg are quarantined. In any case, the file can be archived or zipped and sent. The spam firewall does not currently block anything in archives except for viruses.

 

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