Hawkmail - Known Issue

Start Time: 3/27/2009 8:00:00 AM
End Time: 8/17/2009

Description:

Update 8/13/2009:  As many of you are aware, SPAM continues to be a problem on campus and with the Hawkmail service. ITS has been working on additional measures to reduce the amount of SPAM that is delivered to Hawkmail, and on August 13th, ITS is planning to put additional protection in place.  Specifically, ITS will be making the following changes:

  • At 10:00 AM, ITS will provide a similar level of protection for messages sent to @iowa.uiowa.edu addresses, similar to that which is currently provided for mail sent to @uiowa.edu addresses. Email sent directly to @iowa.uiowa.edu address will be rejected if the SPAM probablilty is 80% or higher.  Individual preferences cannot be set for @iowa.uiowa.edu addresses.  We believe a significant amount of the SPAM received by Hawkmail users is delivered to their @iowa.uiowa.edu address.
  • At 12:00 PM, ITS will remove the existing content filtering solution that has previously been in place on the Hawkmail servers. This change will fix the “Outlook Blocked Senders List” issue described below and at http://helpdeks.its.uiowa.edu/alerts,id=242

Please contact the ITS Help Desk (319-384-4357 or its-helpdesk@uiowa.edu) if you have any questions or concerns.

Update 7/23/09: ITS is continuing to work on changes within the Sophos Anti-Spam tool to scan mail sent directly to @iowa.uiowa.edu in addition to @uiowa.edu addresses. Additional servers have been acquired and we are working with Sophos in getting them set up.  Once this is in place, the Outlook Junk Mail filter and Blocked Senders List should work.

Contact the ITS Help Desk (384-HELP or its-helpdesk@uiowa.edu) if you have further questions about this issue. ITS apologizes for this temporary inconvenience.


Update 5/19/09: ITS is continuing to work on changes within the Sophos Anti-Spam tool to scan mail sent directly to @iowa.uiowa.edu in addition to @uiowa.edu addresses. Once this is in place, the Outlook Junk Mail filter and Blocked Senders List should work.

Contact the ITS Help Desk (384-HELP or its-helpdesk@uiowa.edu) if you have further questions about this issue. ITS apologizes for this temporary inconvenience.

Update 4/6/2009: ITS has determined the issue regarding the blocked sender list not functioning and junk mail being delivered.  The issues are related to the spam-reduction efforts that were put in place on Friday, March 20, 2009.  The details of the issue are as follows:

The Outlook Junk Mail filter is looking for a specific rating to send mail to the Junk Email folder.   Since mail coming to @uiowa.edu is being scanned at the gateway by the Sophos AntiSpam tool and sent on to Exchange, it is basically being whitelisted – so Outlook does not think it is spam and it won’t get filtered to the Junk Email folder.  

ITS is working to have the AntiSpam tool configured to scan mail sent directly to @iowa.uiowa.edu.  At that point, ITS will be able change how Exchange filters junk mail and the junkmail filters will resume functioning like they used to.  

In the meantime, users who have depended on the Outlook Junk Mail filter to work should:
 
1) increase their anti-spam setting using the AntiSpam tool to block spam from coming in
2) use Rules to move the messages to the Junk Email folder

Contact the ITS Help Desk (384-HELP or its-helpdesk@uiowa.edu) if you have further questions about this issue or would like assistance with the steps above.

Update 4/2/2009: The issue seems to be impacting junk mail filters in Hawkmail in addition to the block senders list.  ITS is continuing to investigate the issue.  More information will be posted to this known issue as it becomes available.

Original Notice 3/27/2009: Outlook block senders list not working

Customers using Outlook with the ITS Hawkmail service have reported problems with the blocked sender list feature not working properly.  Addresses specified to be blocked are instead being delivered.  ITS is investigating this issue and will work on a solution to correct the issue.  More information will be added to this known issue as it becomes available.

ITS is asking that customers who experience this problem report it to the Help Desk so that we can better understand the extent of the problem.

ITS support staff apologizes for this inconvenience and is appreciative of your assistance.

Last Modified: 8/13/2009 9:59:15 AM