{"224201":{"#nid":"224201","#data":{"type":"news","title":"OIT Responds to Campus Email Frustrations","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIf you\u2019ve experienced more issues than usual with sending emails from your Georgia Tech account in recent months, you\u2019re not alone.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHaving an occasional problem with spam getting through and emails bouncing back will always be a fact of life with email,\u201d said Jason Belford, principal information security engineer in the Office of Information Technology (OIT). \u201cBut we\u2019ve noticed a significant increase in these issues over the past few months.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe first problem is that mail being sent to people off campus has bounced back to the sender, because the Institute has been put on block lists.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen someone on campus falls for a phishing email, the bad guys are able to use that account to send out email,\u201d Belford said. \u201cWhen the spammers \u2014 disguised as Tech \u2014 use the compromised account to send out too much mail, external providers add us to their spammer lists.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo remedy the problem, OIT provides training to help users understand how to avoid phishing attempts, which leads to fewer accounts being compromised.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlso, there is a cap on the number of messages any account can send out. So, once an account has sent out a large number of messages in a certain time frame, the messages are put in quarantine until someone can examine them and determine whether they are legitimate mass mailings, Belford said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis cap is high enough that you won\u2019t exceed it,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s just a precaution that we\u2019ve put in place to protect us if a spammer gets ahold of your account. If the messages can\u2019t get out, then Tech won\u2019t get blocked from other organizations\u2019 lists.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnd the new measures seem to be helping.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIn the past 30 days, we\u2019ve blocked more than 105 million emails from compromised accounts from getting out,\u201d said Pam Buffington, Georgia Tech\u2019s email service manager. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOIT is also working on improving the filters that catch spam and phishing emails.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIf users do not receive the bad email in the first place, then their accounts are less likely to be compromised,\u201d Belford added.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor more information, email \u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:support@oit.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Esupport@oit.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIf you\u2019ve experienced more issues than usual with sending emails from your Georgia Tech account in recent months, you\u2019re not alone.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"If you\u2019ve experienced more issues than usual with sending emails from your Georgia Tech account in recent months, you\u2019re not alone."}],"uid":"27445","created_gmt":"2013-07-22 16:49:14","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:14:34","author":"Amelia Pavlik","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-07-22T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2013-07-22T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.oit.gatech.edu\/","title":"Office of Information Technology (OIT)"}],"groups":[{"id":"1259","name":"Whistle"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[{"id":"8119","name":"email"},{"id":"9299","name":"Office of Information Technology"},{"id":"4112","name":"oit"},{"id":"8111","name":"phishing"},{"id":"168881","name":"spam"},{"id":"623","name":"Technology"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:support@oit.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EOffice of Information Technology\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}