a pattern made from the phishing icon on a blue blackground.

Spam Filtering & Quarantine

Working to stop spam, phishing and malware before it gets delivered to your inbox.

Spam Filtering & Quarantine

No Phishing Logo OIT's spam filtering system works by scanning incoming email for spam, phishing and malware before it gets delivered to your email Inbox. High-confidence phish and malware are dropped or quarantined prior to delivery, while other messages identified as spam are sent to your Junk Email folder. OIT’s multi-application approach helps prevent attempts to acquire user credentials by malicious parties.

If the message is suspect, the spam filter will simply place the item in Junk E-Mail. You may occasionally receive email notification about particularly suspect or malicious messages.

SMU's email security application monitors both inbound messages and messages in the Inbox for spam, including zero-day exploits. If a message is identified as phish or malware post-delivery, it will be removed from your inbox.


Reporting Spam & Phishing

Since our email security applications leverage AI-based learning, your actions will help customize your personal profile for antispam. To report spam, simply move the offending message into your Junk E-Mail folder or click the Report Message button in the Protection section of the Home tab in Outlook or in webmail. Similarly, drag messages out of the Junk folder to your inbox if you don’t want them redirected in the future. Feedback is sent to our vendors which will help reduce the number of false negative and false positive spam messages.

Messages identified as spam by can be forwarded to spam@smu.edu for false positive remediation. You will receive notification if a message is quarantined.

How effective are the Filters?

The current spam filters actually blocks about 97% of the total emails sent from the internet to the SMU mail servers. Although an occasional spam message may reach your inbox, the filter is very effective in minimizing this occurrence.

OIT 2016 Progress Report, 2017.