Educating Users About Spam

The first step in combating spam is to educate your users about how to handle it. In fact, your users are probably the most important defense against spam. Spam is often a result of social engineering tactics employed against your users, and it is important to educate your users on how to avoid it. For example, your users may receive spam that includes a disclaimer stating something similar to the following:

If you wish to be removed from this mailing list, you should respond to the mail with the word "Remove" in the subject line.

Although this is a legitimate tool for some reputable companies, it is often a means of verifying that an e-mail address is valid so that the address can then be used again (likely the address will be sold to other spammers). For more information about what users can do to combat spam, see the Microsoft Security and Privacy Basics Web site.