We've been looking at a steep rise in ransomware -- the type of malware that infects computers and encrypts the user's personal documents, so that they cannot be accessed without first paying a ransom to the malware distributor.  We've increased the scanning effectiveness and options around attachment files through the Spam Filter Portal to help combat these spammers.  Even so, I am sure everyone knows at least one person that has opened that file attachment in and email and then realized that they should not have.

The Spam Filter Portal has some default handling of email attachments that are designed to keep our Users safe from malware, virus, and other type of attachments that are commonly sent by the bad guys.  It is good to be aware of these filters in case you do have a legitimate sender trying to send you an attachment that matches any of these criteria:


Unsafe attachments
Quarantine emails that have potentially unsafe attachment files that end with any of the following extensions: exe, cab, msi, app, bat, dll, hta, inf', js, jse, lnk, ocx, pif, reg, scr, url, vbs, ws, wsc, wsf
This filter is strongly recommended!

Unsafe attachments inside of archive files
Quarantine emails that have a zip, rar or 7z attachment that contains a single potentially unsafe file inside.  Potentially unsafe attachments include files with the following extenions: exe, cab, msi, app, bat, dll, hta, inf, js, jse, lnk, ocx, pif, reg, scr, url, vbs, ws, wsc, wsf
This filter is strongly recommended!

The News feature works like spam filtering -- just instead of placing the filtered items into the Spam folder, they are placed into the News folder.  I get lots/tons of newsletters, notifications, and general updates from Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, various development journals I subscribe to, and general media sites.  Some of it is interesting, some of it is interesting sometimes; none of it needs to be read right now.  I add these items to my News Senders list, using the Mark as News button, and it goes neatly into my News folder for later review and reading.