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FGCU’s Spam Firewall provides us with a combination of the best methods to determine what spam is, and to keep these emails from clogging up your inbox. All email will either be delivered to your inbox, delivered to your inbox with [SPAM] added to the subject line, or quarantined for later review. The device uses a comprehensive combination of user specified rules, spam fingerprint checking, keyword scanning, blacklist and whitelist, spam rule-based scoring, message authenticity checking, and Bayesian algorithms to quarantine email. These methods are updated hourly to give FGCU the best spam blocking protection possible.

When the Spam Firewall receives an email for you, it scores the message for its spam probability. This score ranges from 0 (definitely not spam) to 10 or higher (definitely spam). Based on this score, the Spam Firewall either allows, quarantines, or blocks the message

Emails determined to be spam, scoring 3 and higher, are quarantined to the spam hardware device for review by each user. Emails that have a possibility of being spam, scoring 1 or 2, are marked by adding “[SPAM]” to the subject line and delivered as normal. Each user may set up rules for moving email with [SPAM] in the subject line to a spam folder in their inbox. Also, users have the option to teach the Spam Firewall what is spam and vice versa.

The Spam Firewall has the ability to block spam email so it does not bog down the email servers. Until we are confident that no valid email is blocked we will not turn this option on. We will notify the faculty and staff before implementing blocking.

The Spam Firewall provides complete virus protection for all incoming email in addition to filtering spam. It will eliminate all dangerous emails that contain viruses. The virus protection methods are updated hourly insuring that FGCU has the best virus protection possible.

Welcome Message

• Once we move the anti-spam solution into production you will receive the email shown below if you have messages that are quarantined. Computer Services recommends that you save this email. The email will tell each user how to logon to the Spam Firewall to view your quarantined email.

• Computing Services suggests bookmarking the web address of the spam firewall for your easy reference. http://spam.fgcu.edu:8000.

Quarantine Message

• The Spam Firewall sends you a daily quarantine summary report so you can view the quarantined messages you did not receive in your inbox. From the quarantine summary report you can add messages to your whitelist, delete messages, and have messages delivered to your inbox.
  
• “All staff” emails and eagle mail (FGCU student email) will never be quarantined. Over time, quarantined email will age off the Spam Firewall.
  
• At the end of every Quarantine Summary Report is a link to the quarantine interface where you can set additional preferences and classify messages as spam and not spam. Click the link provided at the bottom of the Quarantine Summary Report (displayed below).
  
• The following figure shows an example of a Quarantine Summary Report.

Logon to Spam Firewall

• For your security you must type your user name and password to access the Spam Firewall. This is the same user name and password that was emailed to you in the welcome email.
  
• You must use your full email address including the “@fgcu.edu” in the username box.
  
• For security purposes it is important that you change you password from the initial password sent to you. Changing your password will be covered in the Setting Up Preferences section later in this tutorial.
  
• If you have forgotten your password, follow the instructions for using the Create New Password button at the bottom of the login page.
  

Quarantine Inbox

• After logging into the quarantine interface, select the QUARANTINE INBOX tab to view a list of your quarantined messages. When you first start using the quarantine interface, you should view this list on a daily basis and classify as many messages as you can.
  
• The Spam Firewall has a learning engine that learns how to deal with future messages based on the ones you classify as spam and not spam. The learning engine becomes more effective over time as you teach the system how to classify messages and as you set up rules based on your whitelist and blacklist.
  
• Clicking on an email displays the message.

Spam in Subject Line

• Emails that have some characteristics of spam but not enough to be quarantined will be delivered to your inbox and will be labeled by adding [SPAM] in the subject line.
  
• You can set up inbox rules that will automatically deliver this email to a spam folder you create. Setting up inbox rules will be covered later in this tutorial.
  

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Please contact the Helpdesk at 590-1188 if you have questions.