Defending Your E-mail (NU's E-mail Defense System)

Fed up with junk e-mail, "phishing" scams and virus threats? Here's some good news. A new University-wide E-mail Defense System (EDS) scheduled for fall quarter implementation will significantly reduce the amount of junk e-mail on campus.

EDS, an enterprise e-mail filtering system powered by Sophos PureMessage, will scan messages headed for the University's central mail servers (casbah, hecky, lulu, and merle) and weed out unwanted/junk mail and viruses.


A sample of a phishing scam that circulates
the Internet and winds up in people's
e-mail boxes.

How does the E-mail Defense System identify junk e-mail?

EDS contains several hundred junk e-mail tests that analyze individual characteristics of each message. Each of these tests has a numerical weight. When a message is analyzed by EDS, the weights from all the junk e-mail tests that matched the message are added up and converted to a junk e-mail score that expresses the message's "junk e-mail probability". Each e-mail is then assigned a junk e-mail probability rating between 0% and 100% based on these multiple tests. The higher the junk e-mail probability rating, the more likely the e-mail is marked as junk mail.

Junk e-mail will be safely quarantined (placed in an isolated location on the network) for a user to access and review at any time. An e-mail digest that contains a list of quarantined e-mails will be sent to each user daily during off-peak hours. Users will be able to have quarantined messages sent to their inbox or deleted entirely. In addition, users will have the ability to customize what gets quarantined to ensure that desired e-mails are delivered appropriately.

How does the E-mail Defense System identify viruses?

EDS uses antivirus definitions much like the antivirus software installed on users' personal computers. Messages that are identified as viruses are blocked from delivery to the mail servers.

The implementation of EDS is an opt-out service and will be implemented across the University automatically in October, 2005.

EDS will be launched for "early adopters" sometime before the end of summer quarter. This will allow strategic University users to opt-in to the service before the University-wide rollout.

NUIT will announce specific rollout dates as soon as they are determined. For more information about EDS, please visit NUIT's "What's New & Changing in Technology @ NU" site

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