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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Spam, Spam, Go Away


In some ways, it's the electronic equivalent of junk mail and sales phone calls. Spam is not only an unsolicited and annoying nuisance, it's also a pervasive problem that's clogging and overwhelming the Internet's email systems. Spam accounts for approximately 80 percent of worldwide email volume.  For example, on March 22, MCC’s spam filter blocked 233,134 potential spam emails from going into our inboxes.  Even then, some spam will get through.  The problem is that spam emails are a major vector for malware and phishing. 

Never, ever reply to a spam message. This includes buying a product that is for sale or clicking the often-misunderstood "unsubscribe" link, which actually informs your spammer that you exist. If you can tell from the subject line that a message is spam, don't open it — delete it. 

Don't click any links in a spam email. These links can redirect you to an unsecure website that requests sensitive information from you.

Don’t click on any attachment in a spam email. It can install a Trojan via a malicious email attachment or an ad which will allow the intruder to exploit loopholes and obtain sensitive information on you or the files you handle.

Don’t be fooled by a spoofed email. Spoofing the sender address in an email to appear as a reputable source and request sensitive information.

If you want to report a spam email, you can forward the offensive email to: <mailto:spam@uce.gov> which is the Federal Trade Commission’s email address.

According to their website, they receive about 300,000 spam cases a day and store them to “generate cases against people who use spam to spread false or misleading information about their products or services.”

However, should spam slip through our spam filters, take the simplest approach to suspicious emails and just hit delete.

Donna Pogroszewski
Communications and Network Services
03/28/2016