Spam and SpamSoap

GSSM uses Spamsoap to protect students, teachers, and administrators from dangerous and offensive email.

Spamsoap is a service that inspects each incoming email message before it reaches the GSSM network. When the service determines that a message is gratuitous spam, or represents a virus or trojan threat, it deletes the message instantly and silently before it can annoy or cause harm.  Many phishing attacks are also caught by Spamsoap.

Since subscribing to Spamsoap in Fall 2006, the volume of spam and dangerous messages has been dramatically reduced at GSSM.  However, no product provides 100% protection, so GSSM recommends that email users continue to exercise caution, and to avoid responding to messages or opening attachments unless they know who they came from and why they were sent.  CERT, Carnegie-Mellon University's center for Internet safety has published these guidelines for safe email use.

When your message is quarantined:
Sometimes, Spamsoap is unable to determine whether or not a suspicious message should be  delivered.  When this happens, the message is placed in a quarantine and the recipient is notified by email that there is a message in quarantine awaiting their review.

When you are notified by Spamsoap that one or more of your messages have been quarantined, you must follow the link it provides so that you can determine whether the message or messages should be delivered or deleted.  A notification in FirstClass often looks like this:



When you click on the (long!) link, FirstClass will open the web-site in your web-browser.

The easiest way to see all of your quarantined messages is to select View all quarantined messages from the drop-down menu (as shown below). You can then choose to delete the messages or have them delivered to your FirstClass mailbox.


If you have other questions about using Spamsoap or GSSM email, please contact us at: help@gssm.k12.sc.us.