Imperial College secures its email

London university adopts security system to stop unwanted messages

Imperial College London is using an email blocking system to protect students and staff from receiving unsolicited messages.

The system will help the College's small IT security team of three deal with the significant threat represented by unsolicited email, and allow them to concentrate on managing other types of risks more effectively.

The team is charged with central management of the security of all 16 of Imperial's campus locations located in and around London, including 3,000 students in halls of residences where there is 24 hour email and internet access.

Imperial College security manager Chris Roberts says it receives about 250,000 illegitimate emails on average a day , comprising mostly of spam, but also possible phishing, DOS and DHA attacks.

'The advanced signature based approach of MailMarshal weeds out these more threatening emails, and around 95 per cent of users personally manage their own quarantined spam' he said.

'That allows the IT department to concentrate on enhancing other aspects of network security. We used to on average, receive half a dozen email related queries a day, but now we receive half that in a week.'

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Further Reading:

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• Sheffield Hallam installs new network
• Doncaster Education City is promoting lifelong learning through an innovative learning environment