Information About Spam Email
- What is spam email?
- What you can do with spam that appears to originate from within U.Va.
- Finding email message headers
- What you can do with spam that appears to originate from outside U.Va.
- What ITS does to stop spam
What is spam email?
Although the term was first associated with newsgroups, it is now linked to unsolicited email messages. You may receive these messages from someone you know or from a complete stranger. The messages may contain commercial information, good luck wishes, notices of philanthropic opportunities, humor, etc., or they may be phishing or spear phishing messages, which attempt to trick you into divulging your login and password, as well as personally identifiable information (PII).
What you can do with spam that appears to originate from within U.Va.
If the message originates from University resources, or the sender appears to be someone at U.Va., the Abuse Team needs to know about it. Although message headers can be forged to make it falsely appear that the message originated at U.Va., the Abuse Team can examine the message to verify its source.
Please redirect the message you received with full headers to abuse@virginia.edu. The links below show you how to find the full headers, which depend on the email client (Outlook, Eudora, CMS, Gmail, etc.) you use to read your mail.
Finding Email Message Headers
- Outlook 2003 and 2007, Entourage, and Eudora, with thanks to Harvard University.
- Outlook 2010 Double-click the email message to open it, click the File Tab at the top, and choose Info, then Properties. Copy the Internet headers into a new message.
- UVa's Central Mail Service Email client (CMS) header information
- Gmail
If you use an email client not listed above, call the U.Va. Help Desk at 434-924-HELP (4357) for assistance.
Do not reply to the sender, or click on any links in the message. We recommend you also check the ITS Security Alerts and Warnings page to see if the message has been reported.
What you can do with spam that appears to originate from outside U.Va.
Deleting spam is the best course of action for messages originating outside U.Va. Do not reply to the sender, or click on any links in the message. Do not open any attachments, as they may contain viruses or other malware. You might also check the ITS Security Alerts and Warnings page to see if the message has been reported. Please do not send reports of these messages to the Abuse Team.
If you receive an email message that appears to be a phishing or spear phishing attempt, please send a copy of the message including headers to the Abuse Team.
What ITS does to stop spam
All email accounts receive spam messages. To mitigate this problem, UVa uses IronPort®, a Cisco® hardware applicance that runs IronPort® Anti-Spam™.
These antispam services are:
- Provided automatically for faculty and staff with email accounts on the UVa Exchange Service and on the UVa Central Mail Service (CMS). These services are also automatic for messages sent to a faculty or staff primary email address (for example, mst3k@virginia.edu).
- Provided for students on student email accounts with UVa-contracted vendors, in addition to the excellent anti-spam services provided by the vendors themselves.