Jamming down on that damn spam

By Pte John Wellfare

BOMBARDMENT of DRN accounts with junk email has prompted the ADF to invest in software to help stem the flow.

Junk email, or spam, accounts for 14 per cent of the 300,000 emails entering the DRN every day. This is part of a global epidemic that has led to the introduction of anti-spamming laws in many countries and the release of software products to counter the problem.

The Manager of network security operations for the DRN, Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Woods, said the spam filter would begin initial trials on the system from April 5, with the need for as much participation from users as possible.

“What we will do is ... people will get their emails delivered, but if the filters determine that it’s spam it’ll come with a heading warning saying ‘warning – spam’ and the rest of the subject header, or ‘warning – possible spam’ and you can take various actions,”
LTCOL Woods said. “Basically, if you get spam you delete it and after a month you’ll stop receiving it, or you can [forward the email] to spam@defence.gov.au and we will stop you receiving it straight away.”

He said it was possible the spam filter could get it wrong, making it important for members to check even the emails that came with the spam warning.

“If you look at the message and you discover that it’s not spam, you can forward it to notspam@defence.gov.au and we will ensure that you keep receiving messages from that source,” he said.

After the six-week trial, emails identified as spam will automatically be blocked from the DRN.

LTCOL Woods said the spam filter did not just rely on users to identify sources of spam, but constantly built on its extensive database of known sources.

“[To indicate] just how dynamic the spam problem is – virus patterns get downloaded according to the threat, but usually once a week you get a new pattern for the virus scanning. The email patterns [for spam prevention] get downloaded every three hours, so that gives you some indication of the extent of the problem.

“The thing to stress is that no solution will be 100 per cent effective, but we’re reasonably confident that this will reduce the vast majority.”

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