Spam

Ask Yourself

• Have you ever used your school/professional email address at a trusted or untrusted site?
• Have you ever entered a contest online with your school/professional email address?
• Have you ever used your school/professional email on a chat room, bulletin board (forum), social networking site, or blog?
• Have you ever responded to an unsolicited email (phishing)?

If you answered yest to just one of these questions you could be the target of spammers!

Did You Know?

• According to recent statistics from Postini, 10 out of 12 messages are spam and 1 in 39 emails contain viruses
• Sophos research found that 92.3 percent of all emails  were spam during the first quarter of 2008.  They also found that on average every 3 seconds a new spam-related web page was created/posted.  This includes free sites such as Geocities or splogs (spam in blogs).

How to Minimize Your Level of Spam

• Only use your school/professional email account for school or professional business
• Have a second email account that you use for untrusted sites and other online activities.  Be sure it is one that you will only check for validation purposes because it will eventually fill up with spam.
• Do not enter contests that require you to provide your email address UNLESS the site is legitimate and you use your second email account.  Remember, nothing is free, especially the gift cards, laptops, Viagra, and cell phones so often bragged about in spam messages.
• Look for opt-out policies when you purchase something or agree to a service.  Always opt out of newsletters, contests or special offers.
• Privacy policy statements should accompany any service or product purchased.  If there are no privacy policies they you probably don't want that site to have your email address.
• Don't give out other people's email addresses.  Sometimes websites will ask you to refer others to them.  Do not do this unless you have permission from the addressee.
• Don't forward chain letters.  Spammers collect email addresses from these letters.
• Spammers also obtain addresses by patrolling chat rooms and bulletin boards (forums).  Try to keep your email address off the Internet.

EKU Anti-Spam Solution

IT has an anti-spam solution for all EKU email accounts.  This is available online here.

Please realize that no spam solution is 100% effective but this will help minimize what you do receive.