New Year’s Hours
Posted by Brian Gallutia on Dec 30, 2008
PCS Technicians will be on call this week during the New Year’s holiday. If you require assistance, please feel free to call 615.371.9931 and select option 1 to leave a message. You may also use our Contact Form to reach us.
Have a great new year!
Emergency Updating
Posted by Brian Gallutia on Dec 20, 2008
During the course of regular updating and patching of all PCS servers, a problem was experienced which required immediate attention. As of this writing, all servers are slowly coming back online and appear to be operating properly.
We apologize for this inconvenience and expect to be fully operational in less than 30 minutes. Thank you for your patience and all apologies for the inconvenience.
Too good..
Posted by Brian Gallutia on Dec 10, 2008
Malware Alert – Colonial Bank
Posted by Brian Gallutia on Dec 10, 2008
Be aware of a new scam out in the e-mail jungle from “Colonial Bank.” The subject is “Colonial Bank on progress – New Demo Review” and the link takes you to what appears to be a valid site, but when trying to view the demo, you are told to update your Flash player:
The infection-type works just like Koobface, so steer clear of this hack attempt. If you get into trouble, please remember that you can always tap PCS for help.
Backscatter Counter-Measures
Posted by Brian Gallutia on Dec 8, 2008
As mentioned in a previous post, backscatter spam (also known as outscatter, misdirected bounces, blowback or collateral spam) has been eating our mail server’s lunch lately and causing our customers no end of headaches as they wade through inbox messages that appear to be coming from their own accounts, but is in actuality spam from a foreign source
For those of you who don’t know what backscatter is, Wikipedia explains it best:
Backscatter … is a side-effect of e-mail spam, viruses and worms, where email servers receiving spam and other mail send bounce messages to an innocent party. This occurs because the original message’s envelope sender is forged to contain the e-mail address of the victim. A very large proportion of such e-mail is sent with a forged From: header, matching the envelope sender.
PCS has recently implemented counter-measures that should significantly reduce the amount of backscatter our customers receive. If after a few days you do not see an improvement in this condition, please drop us a line and we’ll take a closer look at your account.
Training Your PCS Spam Filter
Posted by Brian Gallutia on Dec 1, 2008
The ongoing fight against spam changes on an almost day-to-day basis. It is important to not only stay on top of what you allow into your inbox, it’s also important to train your PCS spam-filter to know the difference between good e-mail and bad.
Follow these short steps to fine-tune your spam filter to get the results that you’re after..
- Log into your e-mail account by navigating to the PCSDesk web site and selecting the PCSDesk Mail Login link. Use your e-mail address and password to gain access.
- Select your Inbox folder on the left-hand side of the mail interface. The right-hand pane will display all of the e-mails currently waiting for your review. Browse these messages and if you run across a message that you consider to be spam, check the box next to the message’s subject.
- Select the Action drop-down menu and click on “Mark as Spam.” When you do so, two things will happen:
- The “bad” e-mail will be moved to your Junk E-Mail folder
- The sender’s e-mail address will not only be recorded by the spam filter, it will also be read. Over time, the spam filter will read enough of your spam e-mails to know what you consider to be “spam” and what you consider to be “ham” (aka “good” e-mail).
As always, if you have any questions, you can use the mail system’s online help features or you can drop us a line any time and ask a question.
Spam Engine Update
Posted by Brian Gallutia on Nov 4, 2008
This afternoon, PCS updated the engine that powers our spam filtering service. With this update, users should experience more spam being “caught” by the filter, less false-positives, and faster delivery times.
If you’re a PCSDesk Mail customer, you should already be benefiting from this upgrade. Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have about your spam filtering or your e-mail account.
The Trusted Senders List
Posted by Brian Gallutia on Nov 2, 2008
Checking your e-mail account’s Trusted Sender list from time to time is essential in making sure that your spam filtering is not keeping you from getting your important e-mails and attachments. Following are simple instructions that will guide you through the process of streamlining your Trusted Senders list to insure that the filters know the difference between “spam” and “ham”:
- Log into your e-mail account by navigating to the PCSDesk web site and selecting the PCSDesk Mail Login link. Use your e-mail address and password to gain access.
- Select your Junk E-Mail folder on the left-hand side of the mail interface. The right-hand pane will display all of the e-mails considered to be “spam.” Browse these messages and if you run across a false-positive (IE: an e-mail caught in the spam filter that shouldn’t be there), check the box next to the message’s subject.
- Select the Action drop-down menu and click on “Unmark as Spam.” When you do so, two things will happen:
- The “good” e-mail will be moved to your inbox
- The sender’s e-mail address will be added to your e-mail account’s own Trusted Senders list. When an address is added to this list, the spam filter will ignore any future e-mails from this sender.
If you would like to review your Trusted Senders List or add/subtract e-mail addresses directly, you may do so by selecting the Settings drop-down menu, clicking on My Spam Filtering, and selecting the Trusted Senders tab.
As always, if you have any questions, you can use the mail system’s online help features or you can drop us a line any time and ask a question. We’re here to help.
Ongoing Fight Against Spam
Posted by Brian Gallutia on Sep 28, 2008
Over the past two weeks, the amount of spam that PCS processes on a minute-by-minute basis has been increasing exponentially. This increase is due, in part, to new types of malware and spyware infections hitting our customers and anyone with a high-speed Internet connection.
Over the weekend, extended measures were put in place to (hopefully) help curb the amount of spam that users have been receiving lately. During the installation of these measures, some users may have received an unusual amount of spam on Saturday, September 27th.
If you are one of these users, we apologize for any inconvenience. Hopfeully after Saturday, you are experiencing a sharp drop in the amount of spam you were receiving.
If you have any questions relating to your email account with PCS, please feel free to use our Contact Form and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you.
Untangle your Network
Posted by Brian Gallutia on Sep 3, 2008
Tired of Spam?
Worried about spyware, viruses, and botnets on your network?
Employees visiting inappropriate web sites?
Do you wish you had more control?
Now there is a better way to manage your network.
Untangle delivers an on-demand suite of applications that run on a single server and will change the way you think about network software. Untangle lets you:
- control network activities that reduce productivity such as spam and inappropriate web surfing, which cuts into your company’s bottom line
- enable anytime, anywhere access for remote employees, and
- protects your computers and data from outside threats such as viruses, spyware, botnets and phishing.
PCS has recently secured a reseller agreement with the good people at Untangle after successfully testing and implementing this unique solution for a few of our most valuable customers.
Is your company in need of a good firewall that won’t nickle-and-dime you with expensive subscriptions and upgrades? Do you need to insure that your users are protected against virus and spyware attacks from the Internet? Is MySpace, Facebook and Instant Messaging eating into your company’s bottom line?
If so, let PCS outfit your business with a Untangle demo unit today!
