SPAM Email (Unsolicited Email)

• SPAM Filtering
• Reporting SPAM
• Accessing Quarantined Email
• First-Time Users
• Quarantine Usage Instructions
• Frequently Asked Questions

SPAM email is unsolicited email. From the sender's point of view it's a form of bulk mail, often to a list gathered from subscribers to an online discussion group or harvested by companies that specialize in creating email distribution lists. To the receiver it usually seems like junk e-mail. In general it's not considered good 'netiquette' to send spam. It's generally equivalent to unsolicited phone marketing calls.

Some apparently unsolicited email is in fact email that people have agreed to receive when they registered with a site and checked a box agreeing to receive postings about particular products or interests. This is known as both opt-in email and permission-based email so it is important to be aware of what you are agreeing to when you provide your email address.

SPAM Filtering

IS Services have implemented a service called Forefront Online Security for Exchange, or FOSE, which filters SPAM and email infected with viruses before it arrives to the end-user's email application. All staff email sent to addresses ending with @tcd.ie is filtered in this manner.

The FOSE service identifies SPAM and infected email, and automatically holds it in a 'quarantine' location so that it is not delivered to the end-user. This quarantine can be accessed online so that users can check that no legitimate email has been mistakenly identified as SPAM (an email like this can be referred to as a false-positive). In the rare event of a false-positive, such email can be 'salvaged' from the quarantine, sending it on to the user's normal email client.

Reporting SPAM

If SPAM email is still being delivered to your email application you may report it by forwarding the message to abuse@frontbridge.com. When forwarding an email to this address please ensure you include the email headers. You must forward each message individually. Emails sent to this address will be considered for addition to the list of known sources of SPAM.

Accessing Quarantined Email

Quarantined email is accessed by logging into an online service located at http://quarantine.messaging.microsoft.com/. Users may find it useful to add this URL to their web browser Favourites or Bookmarks for ease of access. Full instructions on how to use the quarantine service are outlined below. Please note that first-time users must activate their account before they can use the service. Some frequently asked questions are covered in our SPAM Filtering FAQ.

N.B. Please note that SPAM is kept in quarantine for 30 days only. After that time, the email is permanently deleted and is not retrievable. If you do not access your quarantine for 7 days you will be sent a notification email prompting you to check it.

With regards to the notification email sent if quarantine is not accessed for 7 days, mailing list moderators should note that this email may be sent to the entire mailing list but that it is the responsibility of the list moderator to check the quarantine for that email list address.

First-Time Login

1. Browse to the SPAM Quarantine login page
2. Click the 'Need your password?' link as shown below. Note that you also use this link if you have forgotten your password.
   
   
   
   
3. In the User name box, enter your College email address in the form jbloggs@tcd.ie and hit Send.
   
   
   
   
4. You will receive en email from exmailer@microsoft.com containing a link that you should click on. This link will bring you to a page where you can set the password for your account.
   
   

   Specifying a New Password

   Your new password should follow these rules:

   • The password should be at minimum 7 characters long
   • Include at least one lowercase character
   • Include at least one uppercase character
   • Include at least one number or special character e.g. *

   
   

5. Once you Submit this new password you will automatically be logged into the SPAM quarantine for this email account. See the usage instructions below for information on the options available to you in handling these emails.

Long Personal & Non-Personal Email Addresses

Please note that if you have a 'long personal email address' e.g. joe.bloggs@tcd.ie you will need to repeat the above steps using the long email address as your username. Email sent to your long email address e.g. joe.bloggs@tcd.ie is placed in a separate quarantine to email sent to your standard email address e.g. jbloggs@tcd.ie so if you have a long email address you will need to check the quarantine for it as well.

Users of non-personal email addresses will need to login to the quarantine using the email address of the non-personal account e.g. deptname@tcd.ie as the username.

SPAM Quarantine Usage Instructions

Once you have logged into SPAM Quarantine login page, the Message List window displays your spam messages similar to the image below. Messages will appear with the most recently received messages on the first page.

Navigating in the Message List window

1. If you have multiple pages of email, to view successive pages, click the forward arrow at the bottom right of the window.
2. You can change how many messages are displayed on a page. The default is 50. To change the default, select a new number under Options.
3. You can search for a particular message either by Sender address or by Subject Line by entering your search string into the 'Type here to search' box at the top of the window and choosing whether to search by 'Subject' or 'Sender'. Wildcard characters are allowed

Routing email from the Message List window

1. Select the email by clicking the check box. You can select multiple emails by clicking the corresponding check boxes, or all by checking the box beside 'From'
2. From the menu at the top of the window you may select from these three actions:
   • Move to Inbox: forwards the message(s) to your email application
   • Not Junk: reports the message(s) as a 'false positive' and forwards the message(s) to your email application - Note that this option is currently not operating correctly and so the advise is to instead use the 'Move to Inbox' option for the time being.
   • Delete: deletes the messages you selected in the check boxes
3. You are not required to delete any spam but note that email held in Spam Quarantine is automatically deleted after 30 days

Navigating in the Individual Message Window

To view an individual message, click on the Subject Line of that message.

Routing Email And Navigating In The Message Window

Within the message window, select one of the options to handle the message, explained below, or click on the arrow to view the next email or click Close to return to the message list window:

• Move to Inbox: forwards the message to your email application
• Not Junk: reports the message as a 'false positive' and forwards the message to your email application - Note that this option is currently not operating correctly and so the advise is to instead use the 'Move to Inbox' option for the time being.
• Delete: deletes the message
  

Searching for Emails in the Message List Window

FOSE offers a method of searching for messages in your spam quarantine.

1. When you logon to your quarantine you will see two boxes for above your message list. Enter your search string into the first box and then in the second box choose whether you wish to search under Subject or Sender. Click on the magnifying glass icon to initiate the search.





Note that the search is not case sensitive and that the search string you provide only has to be part of the result e.g. if you search under Subject for 'watch' you will get results for 'Watch' and 'watches'.

Note that it is not possible to search by date nor is it possible to search based on the contents of your spam emails, you may only search by sender or subject.

To return to the normal message list view click on the 'Junk Email' button on the left of the screen.