Spam prevention during 2010
7 January 2011
The University's email system is an integral part of University life for students, researchers and staff alike. INSRV's Mail Team constantly works to stop harmful emails before they reach our users.
The replacement in January 2010 of the mail gateway servers, which are responsible for directing emails to the appropriate location and identifying spam messages, resulted in improved spam detection and decreased email delivery times.
During February 2009 67.6% of emails were delivered in less than 1 minute. In February 2010 (following the installation of the new servers), 94.9% of emails were delivered within this timeframe.
The email gateways are a very effective method of reducing the likelihood of spam reaching our users. However, there is a risk that genuine emails could be mistakenly identified as spam, so INSRV's mail team cautiously adjust scanning parameters to minimise this risk. This means that users may occasionally still receive spam that has not been identified as such – but this is preferable to genuine messages being mistakenly identified, and possibly deleted, as spam.
Did you know...
...during 2010, 92% of all incoming emails were rejected on this basis by our internet mail gateways? This amounts to over 645 million emails in the course of the year.
Over 55 million messages were deemed legitimate and delivered to our users.
Find out more...
Computer security and virus protection at Cardiff University