Out of Office and Spam 2

[pinkfloyd65]

I have an anti-spam firewall which does a pretty good job in blocking more than 90% of the spam sent to our network. Under these conditions, is it wise to "turn on" the Out of Office reply going outside the network? We are running Exchange 2000.
I'm willing to consider all suggestions/recommendations on this issue.
Thank you all for your input.

 

[Marcs41]

it is never wise to do so.

Spamfilter or not, at some point in time, they get through, that or a virus.
Plus, even if your filter strips it, you will still get more and more traffic.

Marc
[sub]If 'something' 'somewhere' gives 'some' error, expect random guesses or no replies at all. Please specify details.
Free Tip: The F1 Key does NOT destroy your PC!
How Do I Get Great Answers To my Tek-Tips Questions? [/sub]See faq222-2244

 

[Claudek]

Am not to sure on this. The entire premise behind "Out of Office reply" is for people to know that someone in your organisation is away for a certain time period. As a coincidence, my boss just left right now and activated his Out Of Office reply as he is away till next week. We are quite busy right now and at least clients know he is away and they can contact someone else if required.
If your spam filter is as good as you think, the business requirement easily outweighs spam concerns. A customer for example would not be happy to have to call to find out why their emails have not been responded to.


Claudius (What certifications??)

http://www.iteq.com.au

 

[Marcs41]

Sorry but if business requirements outweighs spam concerns, the boss should let customers know BEFORE leaving on vacation.

 

[Claudek]

That would be true if you knew which customers were going to need to contact you. Mass mailing all your cutomers including those who had no intention to contact you is not very professional (not to mention spamlike).
Contacting customers to let them know you are going away is an option for companies with small clientelle.

I still do not see why fear of spam should affect "Out of office" replys. All my clients have this feature turned on, including law firms (who use this feature a lot) and spam has never been an issue. They also as the original poster have mail spam filters which so far have worked quite well.



Claudius (What certifications??)

http://www.iteq.com.au

 

[Davetoo]

What your boss should do is have his mail monitored or forwarded to someone that can take care of his customers needs instead of just telling them he's gone and to contact someone else. That's the more professional route. By enabling the replies to the Internet, he's contributing to my problems with spam.

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[esmithbda]

lander215 - how is this guy's out of office reply contributing to your spam?

 

[Davetoo]

Because as long as people auto-reply to the Internet, then spammers will continue to probe for those accounts, thus contributing to the number of spammers that probe our systems.

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[esmithbda]

I would argue that as long as you have systems, the spammers will continue to probe them - whether or not someone is using an out of office reply is irrelevant.

That said, if a spammer gets an out of office from userXYZ@somecompany.com, then somecompany.com is perhaps more likely to get probed, sure.

But I fail to see how another company having the out of office reply on "to the internet" can change the amount of spam someone unrelated gets.

But hey, I suppose that is beyond the scope of this discussion.

 

[Davetoo]

Yes, because it's an opinion that we just happen not to agree on, and this is a technical support forum.

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[Marcs41]

If I may add a 'technical' point...

If a hardcore spammer gets inside a less well protected company or home PC, they could use that one to spam again, potentially reaching us, because we are in some address book, or in the next victims one. You would need a virus, spyware or any otherware to accomplish that, but we all know far too well that there is TONS of those out there.

So, YES, anyone allowing ANY automatic responses to e-mail is potentially contributing to the problem.

Marc

 

[wyzard]

Marc and Lander,

Good points, we as the messaging admins need to do all we can to protect our systems. If we as admins allow a function to happen that can contribute to a failure or a compromised network, then we have failed.

In todays business environment, we must stay ahead of the game and (i'm going to hate to say this), worker smarter not harder. If the boss is customer centric, then educate the boss as to tools that can be used to improve the cycle. In other words:
the customer sends an email, the customer gets an Out of Office reply with who to contact in case they need help, the customer sends a response to the contact person, the person gets help. This is a four step process that takes time and extra effort, plus may contribute to a future spam issue. This also increases the load on the email server, virus scanner, and spam filter.

However if the customer sends the email and the boss has delegated mailbox rights to another user, the user then sees the email from the customer and acts on it. This requires less steps to complete and heads off any potential fustration on the part of the customer. This example is more customer centric. And there is less network resources used.

Our job as Admins is not just taking care of the systems, it is also education of our endusers. By educating our endusers about what is acceptable and showing them solutions, we reduce our workload.

I step off of my soapbox now...

Wyz

 

[Davetoo]

Hmm...didn't I already say that, just with fewer words?

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[wyzard]

Yea..., You got me thinking and I wanted to expound on one of my favorite topics: Education.

What can I say? I'm just a wyz at words?

Heh heh heh,

Wyz