From the minute users log onto their e-mail system, they encounter a deluge of unwanted e-mail that flows into their mailboxes all hours of the day and night. The billions of unwanted email messages circulating across the Internet disrupt email delivery, clog up computer systems, reduce productivity, waste time, raise the cost of Internet access fees, irritate users and erode their confidence in using email. Many spam messages also contain material that is offensive or fraudulent, and spam is sometimes used to spread computer viruses.


Spam presents three major threats:

• Overwhelming message volume. Spam drains employee productivity as workers waste time reading, deleting or even responding to spam e-mails. Additionally, the sexually explicit nature of many spam messages poses potential liability for organisations.

• Phishing. Phishing is a specific type of spam message that solicits personal information from the recipient, such as social security, credit card and bank account numbers.

• Spoofing. Spoofing is a deceptive form of spam that hides the domain of the spammer or the spam's origination point. Spammers often hijack the domains of well-known businesses or government entities to enhance the validity to their commercial message or scam. An example of spoofing is an e-mail that appears to come from a known e-mail address that requests a credit card number to confirm the order of goods.

So what can businesses do to help cut down on spam?

Implementing these basic policies and strategies can help cut down on spam:

• Get a spam-filter. Your ISP may offer a filter service. If not, you may wish to buy filtering software. There is a wide choice of anti-spam software that offer a free trial period. Remember that one size does not fit all and obviously the best product for a desktop user or small business would not be appropriate or adequate for meeting the needs of a large enterprise.

• Establish written guidelines for how corporate e-mail addresses and Web browser are to be used by employees.

• Educate users to never respond to an e-mail when the sender is unknown, even to remove themselves from a mailing list.

• Be careful about disclosing your e-mail address. Follow these tips whenever you can:
  

  Set up an e-mail address dedicated solely to Web transactions.
  

  Only share your primary e-mail address with people you know. Avoid listing your e-mail address in large Internet directories.

  Don't even post it on your own Web site.
  

  Disguise (or "munge") your e-mail address. Use a munged address whenever you post it to a newsgroup, chat room, or bulletin board. For example, you could give your e-mail address as "s0me0ne@example.c0m" using "0" (zero) instead of "o." A person can interpret your address, but the automated programs that spammers use cannot. Another example is me@(nospam)isp.com.au where you advise users that they need to delete the (nospam) element of the address.
  

  Watch out for checked boxes. When you buy things online, companies sometimes add a checkbox (pre-checked!) to indicate that it's fine to sell or give your e-mail address to responsible parties. Click the check box to clear it.
  

• Encode corporate e-mail addresses posted on company Web sites in Javascript or HTML to hinder a spider