Spam and phishing emails are unfortunately a daily fact of life in our electronic age but fortunately MIT provides a key tool to block emails that continue to come from bad senders. All MIT Exchange email users have access to Spam Quarantine to stop the spam mail before it gets into your Exchange email inbox.can configure their Exchange email in OWA to block emails from specific addresses or address patterns.
Information about Spam Quarantine Emails at MIT can be found here:
http://ist.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/spam
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Setting up white or black lists for incoming emails
• Select “block or allow”
IMPORTANT: For the time being, Email WITHIN MIT is still being handled by Brightmail.
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Setting up a filter for to block phishing attempts from email addresses with known address patterns
In order to stop phishing emails that have a pattern of ANYTHING.mit@gmail.com you can create a filter in OWA to block all addresses with the pattern mit@gmail.com
- To do so, log in to OWA and go to Options.
- In options, select "organize email" in the left nav.
- In organize email, hit the "+" and select "Create a new rule for arriving messages..."
- For the name, we call this filter "Gmail mit phishing block". For *When the message arrives, and" select "It includes these words in the sender's address..."
- For the "specify words or phrases" type in the pattern mit@gmail.com. This will block all email addresses that have this pattern (for example impersonatedmitperson.mit@gmail.com).
- Once you finish typing mit@gmail.com, VERY IMPORTANT, you must hit the "+" sign to add it. Once you do it will appear under the text box as text with a gray background.
- Next, click "OK"
- In the "Do the following:" select "Move the message to folder..."
- Select a folder you want the phishing email to go to. In this case, we have selected "Junk (Exchange)". Click "ok" after you're done.
- Next confirm all the information looks correct. If so, click on "save".
- You should now see the rule listed in the inbox rules page. Please make sure the rule is checked. That's it! The rule is now live. You may log out of owa.
- Be aware that once the bad guys get wise that you're blocking their emails, all they need to do is change the pattern. You obviously won't be able to block every email from gmail, but if they change the address pattern to impersonatedpersonmitedu@gmail you will need to either block the entire address or the new pattern whatever that may be.
In the left nav you will see a category for "Bad Senders" as well as "Good Senders". Place any email address you would like blocked in the text box in "Bad Senders" and click “Add”.
Conversely, sometimes legitimate emails get stuck in Spam Quarantine as well. If any of these emails are listed, you go to Good Senders and type the email address in the text box and click “Add”. This way any emails from those addresses will always come through into your email Inbox.
And if you weren’t aware before, or forgot, Spam Quarantine sends you daily emails listing all the recent emails it has blocked. In the email you’ll see 2 columns with the sender email and subject. If you see an email that looks legit, log into Spam Quarantine and click the box next to the email. Then click on the “Release” button to send it to your Exchange Inbox.