The campus e-mail system applies antivirus/worm and anti-spam filtering at selected points as e-mail moves into, out of, and through the campus network. The following is a summary of where and how these protections are applied. This information only applies to centrally run mail systems, which include GroupWise, Outlook (Exchange server), MyMail, OrangeMail, and listserv.syr.edu.

• E-mail arriving from the Internet is scanned for viruses by the Trend Micro scanner and for spam by the Brightmail anti-spam engine. Messages containing viruses or spam are deleted. No attachment filtering (based on the type of the attachment, e.g., .pdf) currently occurs at this point (this will change in the future). (Outlook/Exchange, MyMail, OrangeMail, and GroupWise all receive inbound mail through this path.)

• E-mail exiting the campus by way of smtp-host.syr.edu or through the mail exchangers (MX hosts) is similarly filtered.

• E-mail exiting the campus via smtp-server.syr.edu (a.k.a. mailer) is not currently scanned (smtp-server will become an alias for smtp-host in the future and will then receive full scanning).

• E-mail that passes through Exchange/Outlook is scanned by the McAfee antivirus scanner and any viral messages are deleted. Messages containing prohibited attachment types are also removed. The banned attachment list includes: Ade, ads, bas, bat, cgi, chm, cmd, com, cpl, dll, eml, exe, hlp, hta, inf, ins, isp, js, jse, lnk, msi, msp, mst, pcd, pif, pl,reg, scr ,shs, vb, vbe, vbs, wmf, wmv, wsc, wsf, wsh.
  

  NOTE: Students, faculty, and staff who need to send an attachment using one of the above extensions are advised to "zip" the attachment before sending the e-mail.

• E-mail that passes through GroupWise is not scanned until it enters some other mail system that provides antivirus/anti-spam scanning. GroupWise e-mail headed to or coming from the Internet does pass through the Brightmail and Trend scanners.

• E-mail that passes through MyMail is scanned by the Trend Micro AV scanner and by the Brightmail anti-spam scanner.

• Listserv.syr.edu runs the F-secure antivirus scanner against all e-mail it processes.

• Desktop antivirus software applications also scan incoming and outgoing e-mail in some, but not all, cases.

© 1999 - 2008  Information Technology and Services
Syracuse University
Center for Science & Technology
Syracuse, NY 13244-4100
Phone (315)443-2677 - Fax (315)443-2775

For assistance contact consult@syr.edu