Technology Update

Dealing with SPAM or Junk Mail in Kerio
Definition: SPAM is the abuse of electronic messaging systems (this can include e-mail, instant messaging, spam in blogs, wikis, mobile phones and other digital mediums) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. E-mail spam, also known as unsolicited bulk e-mail or unsolicited commercial e-mail, accounts for 85-95% of all e-mail traffic. An industry of e-mail address harvesting is dedicated to collecting e-mail addresses and selling compiled databases. Some of these address-harvesting approaches rely on users not reading the fine print of agreements, resulting in them agreeing to send messages indiscriminately to their contacts. This is a common approach in social networking spam. Others use Trojans and viruses that infect computers and then harvest address information from an address book and send it to a host elsewhere, where the addresses are used or sold for further spamming. Yet another way is just using your email address on Web sites that are unscrupulous. This article will address spam as it relates to e-mail messaging.

How Kerio Server handles SPAM: Kerio Mail Server uses several methods to combat spam. These methods assign a metric to a message that relates to the likelihood the message is spam. These metrics are averaged and the result is applied to a standard. If the result is within a range, it is considered spam. At Heartland, we use several of these methods to block spam. From the more than 2.6 million messages that the Kerio Mail Server has received, it has detected and either rejected or marked over one million messages as spam. Users have further marked an additional 160,000 messages as spam, while only 12,000 messages have been marked as not spam.

How the client can take advantage of Kerio’s Anti-SPAM features: Kerio Mail Server also allows the user to influence the metrics used to determine if a message is spam or not. If a message somehow passes the filters that are used to combat spam, the user can mark the message as spam, and then that message’s characteristics are added to the database used for spam recognition. Users should reassign message types (spam/not spam) in order to assure that the filter recognizes them in the future.

Spam configuration settings are accessed under “Settings.” To access your spam settings, login in to Kerio Mail through your Web browser, click on “Settings,” and select “Settings.” While in the settings window, click on the “Spam” tab. You should have “Move spam to the Junk E-mail folder” checked off. You will see a field below that is titled “Spam Whitelist.” This is where you enter e-mail addresses that you do not want to be marked as spam. To add to the database, click on “Add” and enter the e-mail address in the pop-up window and click “ok.” Messages you receive that are in this Whitelist should not be marked as spam. Another way to add a sender to the Whitelist is to select a message from a known safe sender and right click (control + click on Macs that do not have a right click) and select “Add sender to spam Whitelist.” This will add that sender to the Whitelist without having to go through your settings to do it manually. To further prevent known good messages from being marked as spam, you may also wish to check off “Also trust senders from my contact list.” After you are finished with the settings, click the “ok” button on the bottom right of the User Settings window.

What to do with SPAM: For messages that are already marked as spam in your “Junk E-mail” folder, you can do two things. You can delete it if it is spam or if it is not spam, you can mark the message as not spam. To do this, select the message(s), right click (control + click on Macs that do not have a right click) and select “Mark as not spam.” You may also choose to click on the “Not Spam” button in the Kerio Mail Tool Bar. This will mark the message as not spam, but it does not move the message from the “Junk E-mail” folder. You will have to move it to the “Inbox” or some other folder of your choosing. You may also wish to add this user to the Whitelist as presented earlier in this article.

If the message comes through as a good message and it is spam, you should mark the message as spam in order to add it to the spam database, which will increase the effectiveness of the anti-spam features in Kerio. To do this, select the message(s) that needs to be marked as spam, and right click (control + click on Macs that do not have a right click) and select “Mark as spam.” You will be presented with a window that says, “This message will be marked as spam and deleted.” If you click “ok,” the message(s) will be PERMANENTLY deleted. You can also access this function by selecting the message(s) you wish to be marked as spam, and then clicking in the “Spam” button in the Kerio Mail Tool Bar.

Conclusion: Spam is a fact of life in digital communication. Kerio Mail Server uses sophisticated methods to combat spam e-mails and users of the Kerio Mail system can help with this process by managing their spam correctly. Even with the best processes, some spam may get through, and some messages will be marked as spam. If we follow the methods listed here, we can keep the amount of spam we receive as minimal as possible. If you are having issues with spam or how to manage it, feel free to contact Jim Lagnese at jlagnese@aea11.k12.ia.us, and he will try to answer your questions and help you improve your user experience with Kerio Mail.

Important: BoardMaker Update Available
Mayer Johnson released an update to BoardMaker to fix an issue launching the software after a recent QuickTime update. Anyone with BoardMaker installed needs to download the appropriate updater to patch the software. There are two updaters available. One is for BoardMaker 5 and the other is for BoardMaker 6. The links to the software can be found below. Look at your BoardMaker CD to determine whether you have version 5 or 6.

BoardMaker 5.1.1a Updater
BoardMaker 6.1.4 Updater

After you download and save the updater to your desktop, you may need to uncompress the file to access the installer. Locate either the file labeled Boardmaker Software Family v511a Updater for OS X.zip or Boardmaker Software Family v6.1.4 Updater.zip and double-click on the file to uncompress it. After the file has been uncompressed, you will get a new file on the desktop labeled either BSF v5.1.1a Updater or BSF v6.1.4.159 Updater. Double-click on that file to start the installer. If a dialogue box appears asking if you are sure you want to open the file, click the Open button to continue. Then click the Update button to update your software. Once the update has completed, your software will be up-to-date. It’s now safe to run software update on your computer.

To run software update on your computer, go to the Apple menu in the upper left hand corner and choose Software Update from the menu. It will scan your computer and check to see if any updates are needed. If any updates are listed, make sure there is a check mark in the box to the left of the update and click the Update button to start the download and install process.

Keep in mind some updates can be quite large and can take quite a while to download and install. So, be sure you have plenty of time to allow the updates to complete. Never shutdown, or put a computer to sleep that is in the process of updating software. After updates have been installed it can take longer than normal for the computer to start up and in some cases the computer will restart a second time. So please be patient as this is all normal behavior. It is always recommended to do the software update with the computer plugged into a power supply so the battery doesn’t go dead in the middle of the update.

If you have any questions, concerns or problems performing the update to BoardMaker, contact the Technology Department for assistance.