Your spam report

Why you receive spam reports

Medical Information Technology's filtering systems examine all email arriving from outside the medical campus Exchange system.  Even messages from other UM campuses are filtered, because email origins can be "spoofed."

The filters examine email content as well as other attributes to estimate if messages are spam.  Though very accurate, the filters cannot be perfect.  Sometimes they fail to catch spam, in which case the annoying messages arrive in your regular inbox.  And, though it is relatively rare, sometimes the filters intercept messages that you wish to receive.

The spam reports, which are sent every 24 hours, provide you with an opportunity to release from "quarantine" any messages that have been incorrectly intercepted.  Otherwise you would not know what messages you had missed due to filtering.

If you can live comfortably without that knowledge, delete (or ignore) the spam reports like any other unwanted message.  No action on your part is required.

How to use the spam reports

To release a message from quarantine, click the "Release" link for it (leftmost column of the daily reports).  Your browser will open with a one-sentence message indicating release.  The email will be delivered to your inbox in a few minutes.

You have fourteen days to release messages before they are automatically purged from the quarantine server, but each intercepted message will only be listed once (on the day that it was intercepted). 

You can see a full list of all the messages that have been quarantined for the last fourteen days.  Click on the email quarantine link just above the message list in the daily report to see the quarantined messages.  For each message listed in quarantine you can:

  • release it from quarantine - check the leftmost box in the row of the message, then select "Release"
  • delete it from quarantine immediately  - check the leftmost box in the row of the message, then select "Delete"; or
  • "safe-list" it, so that sender will not be blocked in the future - check the leftmost box in the row of the message, then select "Release and Add to Safelist".

After you have made any release, delete or safe-list selections, you must click on the "Submit" button.   

Alternatively, you can access your quarantined email at any time by opening your browser and going to http://spamreport.med.miami.edu.

Note that deletion is not necessary since all un-released messages will be deleted after fourteen days.  Note also that safelisting is ineffective for addresses that continually change (a common technique of spammers these days).  Click here for more detailed instructions on safelisting and blocklisting

Questions about spam filtering and email processes

Please contact the Medical Information Technology Help Desk at 305-243-5999 or help@med.miami.edu if you have any questions.  You can get answers to questions on how the spam filter works here. You

You can submit particularly annoying or dangerous spam emails to our Spam Administrator by forwarding them to spam@med.miami.edu.