CERN needs your help to tackle spam onslaught

The problem of spam mail continues to increase in severity. About 90% of e-mails now received by CERN Mail servers are unsolicited, and spammers are doing their best to bypass anti-spam filters.

In these conditions, feedback from users is priceless. It enables the CERN Mail Service to improve the fight against spam and to reduce the amount of unwanted mail that is received. Outlook users should note the following anti-spam buttons: "Check spam classification of an e-mail", "Update personal whitelist" and "Report spam".

Reporting spam
Reporting spam

The "Report spam" button is particularly important because it removes a selected unwanted message from your Inbox and sends a copy to the CERN Mail Service. These reports are used to build new filters in almost real time, so that a new spam might be blocked in less than 15 minutes.

Every Outlook user is therefore encouraged to get rid of spam messages by using the "Report spam" button, and not by just deleting them.

Non-Outlook users are invited to report spam by forwarding unsolicited messages to: abuse@cern.ch.

See also the article "CERN has some new recipes for fighting growing volume of spam" in the September-October 2004 CNL, available at www.cerncourier.com/articles/cnl/1/9/11/1.

Thank you for your co-operation.

About the author

CERN Mail Service