Date: January 25, 2014
Time: 5:00PM
Description: On Saturday, January 25, 2014 at 5:00PM, Information Technology will upgrade a critical component of the faculty and staff email system (CofC.edu). This upgrade will provide improved spam, virus, and phishing protection. There will be no disruption in service and no email will be lost during the upgrade. Additionally, your Outlook email rules will not be affected.
This spam filter upgrade will:
- decrease the amount of spam and phishing emails that you receive;
- allow faster intervention if an account becomes compromised;
- allow on and off campus blocking of malicious phishing links and malware;
- minimize system damage and reputation issues caused by compromised accounts.
Please be aware that after the upgrade on January 25th, you will notice a change in the spam digest reports that you will receive (see below for example). For the first 48 hours, you may receive a quarantined email summary (also known as spam digest reports) from two different senders: BWSadmin@cofc.edu and SpamDigest@cofc.edu. These senders are valid and should not be treated as a phishing attempt. Please carefully check the emails in your quarantined email summary and click Not Spam if any valid emails were accidentally quarantined. Unlike our old system, your actions will improve the new system’s accuracy over time. Since the new quarantined email summary will differ from your current report, please view the documentation at http://blogs.cofc.edu/it/files/2014/01/SpamDigest.pdf.
Additionally after the upgrade, you will notice a change in how links appear in your email messages received from outside our network.
All incoming links (URLs) will display a tooltip that shows the link as “URLdefense.Proofpoint.com”. If it is a legitimate link, it will be resolved properly when clicked. If it is a bad link (such as a phishing website), you will be redirected to an informational campus webpage to protect your identity and your computer from hackers. In the example below – by hovering over a link – a tooltip appears. Normally this tool tip from Yahoo would show as http://yahoo.com. With the link protection, the URL will look like the example to the right.
Quarantined Email Summary Example: The old system’s quarantined email summary that you receive is from BWSadmin@cofc.edu. After the upgrade, you will receive quarantined email summaries from SpamDigest@cofc.edu. You will only receive a quarantined email summary only if you receive spam. The system will automatically send you the summary at 6am daily. Using the quarantined email summary, you can view and release any valid emails. Users can also click Safelist and the system will automatically add the sender to your safe senders list.
You can also view your quarantined email summary at http://quarantine.cofc.edu from on and off campus. You will be prompted to login with your CofC username and password. Visit http://blogs.cofc.edu/it/files/2014/01/SpamDigest.pdf for further documentation.
If you have any questions, please contact the Helpdesk at 843-953-3375 or Helpdesk@cofc.edu.