About Brightmail AntiSpam
ITS implements a centralized spam detection system from Symantec called Brightmail AntiSpam that scans all incoming email before the messages are delivered to the user's inbox. The program tags the message header as potential spam if the email meets the specific criteria defined by the antispam filters. The Brightmail spam filters are extremely accurate; the percentage of legitimate email messages that are misidentified as spam--known as the false-positive rate--is an extremely low .001%.
Email messages identified as potential spam include a unique << SPAM? >> tag in the subject header line of a message, as shown below:
Subject: << SPAM? >> unsolicited message
Brightmail AntiSpam also adds a special x-uscspam: spam? tag to the the mail headers of suspected spam mail. The x-header tag provides email account holders with a secondary option for the filtering unsolicited email.
Managing Messages Tagged as Spam
Email account holders may create a filter to manage messages tagged as spam. Users may set filters to delete messages tagged as spam immediately or move them to a Trash or JunkMail folder for review. Users may set the email filter to look for the << SPAM? >> tag on the Subject line of a message or the x-uscspam:spam? x-flag header tag. Users may choose to redirect these messages to a specific folder for review or to automatically delete these messages.
ITS recommends that users set spam filters directly on the USC email server. Server-side filtering allows for spam-tagged email to be processed immediately. To set up automatic email filtering, see the USC Web Mail Filters page.
Please note that messages saved to the JunkMail folder will be automatically purged by the system after 14 days. If you rename this folder (e.g., "Spam"), you will prevent these messages from being automatically purged by the system after 14 days and can manually delete them whenever you prefer.
Filtering Spam through Your Email Program
Email programs such as Outlook, Eudora, Pine, Thunderbird, Outlook Express, can also be set to automatically filter unsolicited messages, moving them to a specific folder or automatically deleting upon receipt.
To find instructions for setting your email program to automatically filter messages tagged as spam, locate your email program in the side navigation on the right-hand side of this page.
Reporting False-Positives and Missed Spam
As with most spam control technologies, the Brightmail AntiSpam system is not 100% accurate, nor 100% effective. ITS would like to know about your experiences with false positives and missed spam so that we can work with Symantec to improve the antispam engine.
False-positives are legitimate messages that are tagged as potential spam by system filters. See the Reporting False Spam page for more information.
To report messages that were not properly tagged by the system, please see the Reporting Spam page.
Frequently Asked Questions
For a list of frequently asked questions and answers, please visit the Brightmail AntiSpam Frequent Asked Questions (FAQ) page.
Getting Help
The ITS Customer Support Center can assist you with setting up filters for your email. However, consultants will not extensively troubleshoot filter rules, nor can they assist users who need finer rules than common ones.
Users requiring assistance can either call the ITS Customer Support Center at 213-740-5555 or send an email to consult@usc.edu.