spam filters with Outlook SP2
Get anti-phishing and spam filters with Outlook SP2
Published: November 3, 2005 | Updated: September 13, 2006
Microsoft Outlook 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) provides the Phishing Protection Feature, which works with the enhanced Junk E-mail Filter to help protect you against spam and phishing scams.
Interested in getting even more protection against phishing scams and spam? See the 2007 Microsoft Office System Beta 2: New security features.
Outlook SP2 is not intended for use with Microsoft Outlook Express.
The Junk E-mail Filter evaluates each incoming e-mail message for suspicious or fraudulent content and characteristics associated with spam and phishing e-mail, and processes it accordingly:
• Fraudulent messages are sent to the Junk E-mail folder, which automatically converts messages to the safer plain-text format and disables all links in the message. This includes messages that have been falsified ("spoofed") to appear to come from a legitimate source.
• Suspicious messages remain in the Inbox, but the links in the message are disabled and you'll see a warning. This includes messages with links to suspected phishing Web sites, which are designed to resemble legitimate sites.
You can always enable links that have been disabled, or stop the filtering features entirely, but this is not recommended.
Note: You must install the Junk E-mail Filter 2005 before you can use the new Phishing Protection Feature. (Earlier versions of the Junk E-mail Filter don't work with the Phishing Protection Feature).
After you install both of the new features, the Phishing Protection Feature in Outlook 2003 SP2 is turned on by default.
Moving messages out of the Junk E-mail folder
If the Junk E-mail Filter designates an e-mail message as junk, and you decide to move the message back to your Inbox, it is processed as follows:
• Messages marked as suspicious are restored to their original format with links turned on.
• Messages marked as fraudulent are restored to their original format, but links remain disabled. If you are confident the link is not from a phishing site, you can still copy the link and paste it into your address bar to follow it.
If you want to re-enable links, click the Turn on Links command in the InfoBar.
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Safe Senders Lists
To help the Junk E-mail Filter and Phishing Protection Feature better process your e-mail, you can determine senders (for instance, someone@example.com) or domains (for instance, @example.com) that you consider to be always safe. The Filter will still disable suspicious links in these messages, but it will not move them into the Junk E-mail folder.
Important: It is not a good idea to include well-known banks, credit card companies, or e-commerce senders or domains in your Safe Senders Lists, because these senders' addresses are the ones most commonly spoofed by phishers.
To add a sender or domain to the Safe Senders List
1. Select the message in question, click Actions, point to Junk E-mail, and then click Add Sender to Safe Senders List or Add Sender's Domain (@example.com) to Safe Senders List on the menu that opens.
2. If the message is in your Junk E-mail folder, it is moved to your Inbox. Disabled links will remain disabled, but the original message format is restored.
and you can try this
read this and try it for Spam
Message Rules
Outlook Express's Message Rules can help filter in your e-mail and note the emphasis on "in". What you need to do is have the message rules check for the e-mail addresses you wish to allow in to your mail folders.
What I do is set up my message rules as follows but not in this order, for the order of them, I'll put that at the bottom in the step by step of the messages rules.:
1) Check for e-mail from particular people and do nothing to it, it then lands in my Inbox. I do have a couple of other rules setup before this one that highlights the e-mail from some of those people in particular colors.
2) Now I have a series of message rules that sort out the various mailing lists I subscribe. Each will go into it's own folder.
3) I also filter on Undisclosed-Recipient. I, personally don't like Bcc: messages so they're dumped into the Deleted Items folder or removed from the server.
4) I filter on empty To: or Cc: lines and empty From lines. You'll see some spam e-mail that those lines are empty. So since it's 99.9999999% of the time, spam I dump that off the server and never see it.
5) I filter on some keywords, such as "Investigate" and various forms of it. These morons sending spam on how to investigate someone is a joke. The info they give and some of the software they sell is just a list of things anyone would think of.
6) Now, my last rule is e-mail that is sent from replies to my posts in the newsgroups or from my web site (old but still gets a lot of hits) from everyday people but it's moved into a "Stuff" folder. It's mail I'll read but it's not as important and that in my Inbox. I do get to it quickly but it's secondary..
Ok, so how do we set up these rules?
The message rules are made up of different sections, four of them:
1) Select the conditions for your rule:
2) Select the actions for your rule:
3) Rule description. Here there are underlines values you will edit.
4) The name of the rule.
So in each rule I'll number each section it belongs so if you see the same number listed more than once, there are more items selected in that section so check each box.
So, off to the races.
Rule #1
I name this one No @ because this is the one that the From line is empty. No respectable mail list will send you one with these lines empty.
Tools | Message Rules | Mail
Press the New button.
1: Where the From line contains people.
2: Delete it from the server.
3: click on the 'contains people'
A Select People dialog appears, type in the character @ and then press the Add button or press ENTER.
Now press the Options button. Select Message does not contain the people below.
Press the OK button. It will now read Where the From line does not contain the '@'
Press the OK button.
4: name the rule No @
Press the OK button and the first rule is now set. You'll notice a check box next to it, that's for you to select to turn it on (checked) or off (unchecked).
Rule #2
This is where I get those that have nothing in the To: or Cc: lines.
1: Where the To or Cc: line contains people.
2: Delete it from the server.
3: click on the 'contains people' and type the @ character. Press the Options button and Select Message does not contain the people below. Press the OK button then press the OK button again.
4: name the rule No To: or Cc: line
Press Ok button and the rule is set.
Rule #3
This rule is one I use to set the color for the people's e-mail I allow in my Inbox and do highlight it with some color. I don't do all of them, just particular ones. You'll have to decide if you want to use this rule, it's just useful to me to tell from a distance who the e-mail is from. It has nothing to do with spam and then you also have to decide who you want to allow in your Inbox.
1: Where the From line contains people
2: Highlight it with color
2: Stop processing more rules.
3: click on 'color' and select a color to use.
select 'contains people' and type in the person's e-mail address. Note, don't type their name because the filters work on the e-mail address and not the display name. Press the Add button and then the OK button.
4: name the rule the particular person's name.
Press the OK button, this rule is now set.
Rule #4
This rule is set up to allow only particular people in your Inbox. Again, you may not want to use this rule but it's helpful to me because particular e-mail from family or some others is a bit more important than the rest.
1: Where the From line contains people
2: Stop processing more rules.
3: select 'contains people' and type in or select from your address book the people you want to add to the list. Press the OK button to finish adding from the address book and press OK again to close the list.
4: name this rule Allowed to Inbox
Press the OK button and this rule is set.
Rule #5
This rule is duplicated numerous times for me. This is used to filter the mailing lists I subscribe and move them to their own folders. This one you have to look at how the list arrives each and every time. It may have the same subject, the same reply address (From line) or the same To: line. So for the first section, you have to select the appropriate line.
To see how the message headers arrive, press CTRL F3 and look at several of the messages to see what's the same thing.
1: Select one of the first three lines in this section accordingly to how you are going to filter it.
2: Move it to the specified folder
2: Stop processing more rules.
3: select the 'contains people' or 'contains specific words' whichever it may be and add the information you need, be it the e-mail address or the words in the subject line.
4: Name the rule the name of the mail list
Press OK and this rule is set.
You can copy the rules and make changes as needed. On some it may make it a bit faster to set up.
Rule #6
This rule is where I check all the rest of the mail coming in against my e-mail addresses in the To: or Cc: lines. If it's not any of mine it gets put in the Deleted Items folder.
1: Where the To: or Cc: line contains people
2: Move it to the specified folder
2: Stop processing more rules.
3: select 'specified' folder and select the Delete Items folder or create a new folder to put it all in.
3: select 'contains people' and put in all of your e-mail addresses.
Press the Add button or ENTER after each one. Now, press the Options button.
Here you have one choice to make if you only have one e-mail address listed. There are two choices if you have more than one.
For only one address, you will only select the Message does not contain the people below. then press the OK button twice then name the rule in section 4.
For more than one e-mail address, you will select the one above but also Messages matches any one of the people below. You will see it there is an OR between each address. The logic is as follows, If it's not this one OR not that one OR not that one....... then it doesn't match what you want. Press the OK button then press the next OK button.
4: name this rule JUNK or whatever you want.
Rule #7
This is my last rule in the line. It's for everything else that hasn't been filtered and it's moved to my Stuff folder.
1: For All Messages
2: Move it to the specified folder
2: Stop processing more rules.
3: select specified' and select or create the folder you want it to be moved to. You can't select the Inbox and if you could, it would defeat the purpose of this rule. It for all the mail from anyone else that may send e-mail to your e-mail addresses that are checked.
4: name the rule: The Rest Of It
Press the OK button and the rule is set.
Press Ok button again and you e-mail is now set to be filtered. Your load of spam will be cut considerably from being noticed.