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Training
Your Users on Spam Avoidance
By James A. Browning
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Spam
filtering will be far more successful if deployment
of spam-filtering technology is implemented in conjunction
with management policies such as educating and training
your users. Since the recent virus thunderstorms,
IS departments have begun to focus on educating their
users on how to slow down virus propagation, with
advice such as not opening questionable or executable
e-mail attachments and not forwarding questionable
e-mail.
When
training e-mail users on spam avoidance, we suggest
that you include the following recommendations:
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Don’t
reply to spam. Although the majority of spam is
received from an invalid sending address, some
spammers’ sending addresses are valid, and
the spammer will use the recipient user’s
reply to validate the recipient’s address.
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| • |
Avoid
entering your e-mail address on message boards,
chat rooms, online directories and questionable
Web sites. Spammers build mail lists by harvesting
e-mail addresses from public Web sites. Your organization
may wish to consider completely prohibiting personal
use of business e-mail on such sites. |
| • |
Use
a disposable e-mail address (DEA) if you need
to enter an e-mail address on a questionable Web
site. DEAs are available from not-for-profit organizations,
such as Spamcon (www.spamcon.org/services/dea/)
and commercial vendors, and messages sent to DEAs
are forwarded to your “real” e-mail
address. |
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If
you opt-in on a Web site to receive e-mail, deselect
the checked boxes that opt you in to receive additional
related, but possibly unwanted, commercial e-mail.
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Don’t
buy from a spammer! If you do, you’re simply
making spamming a profitable business. |
Spam
now makes up 60% of inbound enterprise e-mail, so
midsize enterprises must not only invest in new technologies
to more effectively manage these threats, but also
adopt extensive new policies and procedures to support
them. Learn more about “Fighting
Back Against SPAM” at the upcoming
Midsize
Enterprise Summit.
If
you have a question related to this article, e-mail
Jim Browning at midmarket@gartner.com.
James
A. Browning is Vice President and Research Area Lead
of the Small and Midsize Business Research organization
at Gartner, Inc.
Reference
Research
Note
Spam Filtering Works Better With a Management
Policy
Published: September 22, 2003
Authors: M. Grey and A. Hallawell, Gartner, Inc.
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