Most modern viruses are simply small  programs that replicate themselves after being executed unwittingly by a  computer user. They are created by "hackers" for no other motive than  malice. To protect the email servers against viruses we employ anti-virus  software that detects and repairs viruses that spread via email. However, until  our anti-virus software is updated with the most current updates, we are vulnerable  to any viruses that the software is unaware of. It is a perpetual game of  "catch-up". So when a newly created virus has been released “into the  wild” our only mode of protection is safe email usage. We ask you to keep in  mind the following recommendations when access your email:   

Messages that do not include an attachment are generally safe to open, even if you do not know the sender. If the message does include an attachment be very suspicious of it especially if the text of the message is in any way peculiar (poor grammar or spelling, odd subject matter). If it is uncharacteristically peculiar do not open it until you have verified that it is safe.

If the message is from a known and trusted person but the text or subject matter does not resemble his or her usual patterns be very suspicious, especially if the message includes an attachment.

Anytime an email arrives with an unexpected attachment you should verify that the attachment is safe by contacting the sender via email or phone.

Many mass-mailing viruses send multiple messages all at once. If you see several identical messages in your inbox from the same person or multiple people, simply delete these messages. They are almost certainly viruses.

Above all, you should maintain a  healthy dose of skepticism when you are emailing. In fact, anytime you access  the Internet do so with a bit of paranoia and skepticism.

“Spam” is the generic term for any  unsolicited email messages that usually pitch a product or service. Other times  they may contain offensive and inappropriate content. To minimize the amount of  spam entering our email server we have installed an “SMTP gateway server.” The  server removes any viruses and checks against a database of know spammers. This  and the other strategies we use for virus/spam protection are very effective,  but they are not 100% effective and never will be. While it is certainly  disturbing to receive offensive messages completely unsolicited, remember that  all it takes is for someone else out there who has your email address on their  computer to get infected with a virus. When that happens your address gets sent  to spammers and is added to their database of email addresses. Unfortunately,  short of only allowing internal email (no email from the Internet) we cannot  completely prevent this from happening. But I can assure you that the  strategies we use to block spam are very effective—over 50% of all incoming  email messages dropped before even receiving message due to being identified as  a known spammer.

Also, do not click on any link in the message saying "click here you don’t want to receive these  messages". That will only confirm to the spammers that your email address a valid email address and they will try to send more.    

In all honesty the spam problem will only get worse in the short term. Recently, laws were passed to address this  issue, but the true solution will be the development of a new protocol to  replace SMTP that will prevent unsolicited and inappropriate bulk email. Groups of computer scientists from universities and corporations are currently in the  process of developing this protocol. But it won’t get implemented for a couple  of years so in the mean time, we will have to continue to deal with spam if we  want to receive email. The Technology Department continually monitors the spam  problem and will implement measures to mitigate the problem when necessary.  Please notify us if you frequently and consistently receive spam messages. They should be infrequent and the best practice is to simply delete them without  even opening them.   

One of the most common tactics used  by virus writers and spammers is called “spoofing”. When a computer gets infected with a virus, the virus will search the computer for email addresses  and then use those email addresses to create new email messages for the purpose of propagating the virus further. A new message is created and addressed to a randomly selected email address that it found on the computer. The new message  is made to appear that the sender of the message is one of the email addresses  found on the computer—the message is from a “spoofed” sender.    

For example, someone’s computer has  the email addresses “george.bush@whitehouse.gov” and “bill.gates@microsoft.com” written in a Word document. The computer gets infected with a virus, the virus  finds these two email address, and the virus starts creating new messages. The messages are marked as coming from bill.gates and addressed to george.bush (and  vice-versa). The messages are sent and delivered. Users bill.gates and george.bush both think that they have received messages from each other, when in reality neither of them sent any messages.    

“Spoofing” explains why you may have  received a notification from a server telling you that you sent someone a  virus, and you are certain that you did not. The problem here lies in the fact  that the recipient’s server is sending it’s notification to a spoofed  sender—you did not actually send any message, a virus-infected computer out on  the Internet sent the message making it appear to come from you. If you do receive a message saying that you sent a virus to someone and you are  absolutely certain that you did not please notify our Help Desk, but do not worry as it is almost certainly due to email spoofing.

In order for our email servers to remain stable and fault tolerant it is important that the disk space used for each mailbox remain reasonably low. With approximately 1500 accounts on the server even a small amount of disk space for each user can add up to an unstable server. When many users exceed 100MB of space on the server the potential for mailbox corruption, server instability, and server downtime increases.

Please make it a common practice to delete any mailbox items that you no longer need. Messages with attachments take up the most space so if there are any messages with attachments that you can delete, please do so. It is also important to periodically empty your "Deleted Items" folder. If you are an Outlook user, select “Tools -> Empty Deleted Items Folder” from the file menu. If you are a teacher, select the icon on the top that resembles a trash can.