Administrative Computing Services Spam/Virus Security Program
In an ongoing effort to prevent or reduce the delivery of email generated by SPAM* and viruses, Administrative Computing has installed and configured a SPAM*/virus scanning gateway.
How does the gateway check for viruses?
The gateway gets "liveupdate" definitions from Symantec Antivirus Corporation (http://www.symantec.com), and uses this information to scan each body/attachment of the email. If a virus is found, the email is completely deleted; the recipient in most cases will not be notified; an event will be logged.
The gateway will not allow messages with specific subjects, if they are known to be generated by a virus. These messages will be deleted.
How does the gateway check for spam?
The gateway has a few methods it uses for SPAM*; the most beneficial is the heuristic engine. It uses a set of parameters (which Symantec does not disclose) to check for SPAM*. The threshold is set to a value of 4 (on a 1-5 scale); the engine has caught 65% of SPAM* sent through it, with no false positives. Predictions are AT LEAST 10% false positives.
Suspected SPAM* will have the prefix, "SUSPECTED SPAM:" added to the subject line and then be delivered as usual. No SPAM* will be prevented from reaching individual e-mail accounts. Instead, the SPAM* will be classified and processed at personal comfort levels. You can establish automatic rules to filter your mail, or simply leave it and read it at your leisure. Again, no suspected spam will be deleted by the system.
*SPAM: Spam is unsolicited e-mail on the Internet. From the sender's point-of-view, it's a form of bulk mail, often to a list culled from subscribers to a Usenet discussion group or obtained by companies that specialize in creating e-mail 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 except that the user pays for part of the message since everyone shares the cost of maintaining the Internet.
Unwanted sexually explicit emails are also considered SPAM.
October 2003