Tis' the Season for ... Spam

It's that time of year again and you know what that means?  We are in the beginning of the 2007 annual holiday spam surge.  This phenomenon has happened for the past three years, starting around September, spammers start flooding the Internet.  Some industry experts are saying that spam actually accounted for over 94% of all emails worldwide this year.

Our email filtering catches most spam messages; however, this traffic increase normally comes with a corresponding rise in the number of messages getting through.  We urge you to be prepared for the possible influx of bulk email over the coming months.

Here are some tips:

• Familiarize yourself with the anti-SPAM measures that Smart Solutions provides you or what your organization has in place.
• Be sure to check your "Junk Mail" folder or mail "Quarantine" frequently for legitimate correspondence.
• Make use of "White/Black" and "Allow/Deny" lists that our filtration system employs.  This can help you flag known good, as well as problematic, senders.
• Be sure that you do NOT click on "Remove Me" links in emails unless you are certain they come from reputable companies.  In many cases, this will only send a signal to the spammers that you have read the junk email, and will trigger more headed your way.
• Look closely for the fine print when signing up for on-line orders or offers.  If you see a checkbox that reads something like, "I'd like to receive interesting offers...", be sure to un-check it.

If email hosting for your organization is provided by Smart Solutions, we are happy to help you respond to this issue.  Smart Solutions offers a world-class perimeter-based email defense solutions with all email accounts.  If you have questions about our highly-accurate threat protection with industry-leading low false positive rates, please don't hesitate to contact us.

For more information on how you can avoid spam, check out our page explaining how the Spammers got your email address.