Spam
What is Spam?
Spam or junk-email, is unsolicited, bulk-and often unwanted email. For the most part spam is mainly a nuisance and not necessarily harmful. Without email filtering spam can overwhelm an inbox and adversely impact an email quota or cause a denial of service on an email inbox. When spam is sent from a university account, it indicates an account compromise. The ISO reacts by suspending the account until the owner has a chance to set another password.
Examples of Spam
- Advertising, for example online pharmacies, dating, and gambling
- Get rich quick schemes
- Hoax virus warning
- Hoax charity appeals
- Chain emails which encourage you to forward them to multiple contacts
How do spammers get my address?
Email spam lists are often created by scanning the Internet to harvest email addresses. If an email address was publically posted, a spammer will find it. Spammers can also purchase lists of email addresses after a user subscribes to a service. Be sure to read the privacy policy of any site you subscribe to.
What should I do if I receive spam?
DO NOT REPLY to the spam message. This can inadvertently cause all original addresees to receive the reply, causing another flood of spam messages.
Report Spam. Report spam to report-spam@andrew.cmu.edu. CMU is mostly interested in reports of email spam that originate from within the university, or that extremely offensive to you. Most other spam can simply be deleted from your inbox.
How can I limit spam?
Use an email filter. Check your email account to see if it provides a tool to filter out potential spam or channel spam into a bulk email folder. Computing Services has published instructions on Spam Management for Microsoft Exchange and Google.
Limit your exposure. Decide to use multipe email addresses. One for work, one for personal messages, and one for shopping, chat rooms, coupons, and other services. Also try not to display your email address in public such as on blog posts, chat rooms, and social networking sites.
Check privacy policies and uncheck boxes. Before submitting your email address to a website, be sure to check the privacy policy to see if it allows the company to sell your email to others. When submitting your email address to a website, look for pre-checked boxes that sign you up for email updates and exclusive offers from the company and its partners.
What's the difference between spam and phishing?
Spam is the sending of unsolicted messages for marketing or other exploitative purposes. Though typically unethical, spam is not as dangerous as phishing. Phishing emails attempt to trick the computer user to steal personal and financial information.
