Spammers have a number of attacks, but all spam begins with obtaining the customer's mail address. Spammers can obtain the addresses from a variety of sources with very little effort, but savvy customers can take some precautions to ensure they do not give out their addresses. As a general policy, IT recommends customers not return electronic mail that they do not recognize, since the reply can also serve as a confirmation to the company that they have reached an active address. UH chooses not to filter all of the incoming messages for spam, since doing so would place a tremendous burden on the processing speed of the system. Keep the subject filter short, to catch all of the variations of a common mailing.
Many spammers put numbers at the end of subject lines to prevent filters from working.
Send the potential spam to a separate folder, where you can review it later for acceptable mailings. Customers at UH are advised to refer to established sources when receiving or checking for information on frauds or technology alerts. The organization works with its member companies to track fraud cases, and provides regular updates of those it finds. Although receiving spam is always an inconvenience, customers who take some precautions against the menace can learn to avoid receiving it, and can enjoy electronic mail's benefits with few of its side effects.