Email, Spam Control, False positives or negatives

I signed up for Spam Control but I'm still receiving spam. OR a legitimate email was caught by Spam Control.

Spam is dynamic and our filters are updated every 5-10 minutes. When a new spam campaign begins, it may take a few minutes for the filters to recognize that new spam pattern so several new spam messages can slip past the filter. To help mitigate this scenario, please send the suspect message to: report-spam@illinois.edu. This email address automatically submits the message to our vendor for a spam evaluation and rule upgrade.

If you still receive spam in your mailbox:

  • You can check the message to verify it passed through Spam Control. You can determine if the message passed through Spam Control by checking the message's full headers (How do I view mail headers?). If the message does not have X-Spam-Score, X-Spam-Details, and X-Spam-Origsender tags, then the message did not get processed by Spam Control.
  • Verify the sender is NOT on your Safe list or add the offender or the domain to your block list. See the Managing Safe and Block Lists KnowledgeBase article.

Solicitation Email

While spam is dynamic and each campaign changes tactics to try to get past current filters, the filters do not block or filter legitimate advertising messages. In this case, you should click the unsubscribe button to be removed from that advertiser's mailing list. If you aren't sure how to unsubscribe from such mailing lists (or if you aren't sure if the company is reputable and will actually remove you from the list), then simply add its email address to your Blocked Senders List.

Quarantined Legitimate Email - False Positives (FP)

If you have a legitimate email message misidentified as spam, then add the sender's address to your Safe Senders List. See the Managing Safe and Block Lists KB article. 

Need More Help? 

We can also check the email logs for specific events to help determine why an email passed or was caught by the filters. 
  • Send an email to consult@illinois.edu with a description of the email event, and include details like:  
  1. To:  
  2. From:  
  3. Date:  
  4. Subject: keyword(s)
With this information we can determine the cause and update local rules, etc. If you can attach the offending email, we can submit it to the vendor so they may update their automated filtering. 

Questions


Keywords:
false positive negative wrong 
Doc ID:
48995
Owned by:
Email Relays E. in University of Illinois Technology Services
Created:
2015-03-18
Updated:
2020-12-19
Sites:
University of Illinois Technology Services