For faculty/staff and special purpose email accounts, NJIT began using  Google Message Security powered by Postini as a central spam and virus protection service in June 2009 (student and alumni email accounts are outsourced to Webmail by Google which has its own email hygiene features). The Postini service replaces a similar email hygiene product previously provided by Meridius. As a central service, this means all mail is reviewed for a match against known spam and virus signatures and blocked from reaching user mailboxes if a match is made. This mail filtering results in users not having to deal with the overwhelming majority of spam. However, because "spammers" are constantly changing their methods and tactics, some spam can continue to reach your mailbox.

The Best Practices for using Postini

• Read the Postini Spam and Email Hygiene Quick Start Guide(.pdf document)
• Check your Quarantine Summary email daily (if you have received one). You have the option to release any “good” messages in the Quarantine Summary email directly to you Inbox by clicking the Deliver button. However, this will not add the sender to the “Approved Sender’s” list for future emails.
• If you are unsure about the validity of an email, you can safely Deliver to your inbox for review. You can then delete it as necessary.
• Visit https://mailhygiene.njit.edu to access your Postini Message Center. From the Message Center, you can add users to the Approved Senders list and adjust other settings to fine tune the service for your needs.
• You can also view the Delivered tab in the Message Center to revisit any email you have delivered to your inbox. You can also permanently add the sender of a delivered email to the Approved Senders list by selecting the email, clicking the Deliver button again, checking the box next to the delivered email, and clicking the Approve Selected Sender button. Messages in the Delivered tab will be permanently deleted after 3 days.
• You do not need to delete the spam in your Message Center’s Junk tab (the tab quarantined spam is listed). Postini will automatically move spam to the Trash tab after 14 days, and permanently delete them after 3 more days.
• Do not add large numbers of “block senders”. Only add to the “block senders” list if you are repeatedly getting spam from a specific “from” address. “From” addresses for most spam are randomized addresses so adding the address will not be effective.
• Log out of your Postini Message Center after every visit. Failure to do so may lead to an error message when you next attempt to log in. (more info)
• Remember: Postini is designed to manage your spam for you. You should not feel the need to constantly update your preferences.
• If you want to use a shortcut or bookmark to access Postini, follow the instructions on the Postini FAQ page to avoid any errors (such as Error Message: Invalid IdP URL (HTTP 404) ), that may result from the wrong URL being used by the browser.

• How to use your Quarantine Summary email
• How to use the Message Center
• Postini FAQ page
• Postini's Functionality with Microsoft Outlook
• How Postini filters spam

How to use the Quarantine Summary email

• You will receive an automated Postini Quarantine Summary email from the email address postini@njit.edu once every 24 hours if you have quarantined email. Spam listed in your Postini Quarantine Summary email are not cumulative. To view all of your spam email, you must log into your Message Center.
• This summary will contain a list of each quarantined message, and allow you to click Deliver and send the email directly from your personal Message Center to your Inbox.
• You will not receive a Postini Quarantine Summary if no spam or viruses are identified on a specific day. You will not be able to add the delivered email's sender to the Approved Senders list unless you are logged into the Message Center.
• The url "mailhygiene.njit.edu" in Postini Quarantine Summary email in not an active hyperlink for security purposes against phishing attempts. To access Message Center, you can copy the url "mailhygiene.njit.edu" from the email and paste it in your browser's navigation area.

How to use the Message Center

In order to access your Postini Message Center please visit https://mailhygiene.njit.edu. Use your UCID and UCID password to log in. You may have to enable cookies on your web browser.You may have to enable cookies on your web browser. For more information on enabling cookies visit Google's How to Enable Cookies page.

Your Postini Message Center will display four tabs located on the top left:

• The Junk tab contains all your spam. From here you will be able to:
  • Deliver - This will release the selected spam from the quarantine and send it to your regular inbox.
  • Always Allow - If you deliver a message from the Junk tab, the Message Center will ask you whether you want to add the sender to your Approved Senders list.
  • Delete Selected - This will move the selected spam from the Junk tab into the Trash tab.
  • Delete All - This will move everything in your Junk tab into the Trash tab

• The Viruses tab contains all of the potential viruses recognized by Postini and removes them from email messages. You can review the list of potential viruses blocked and the messages associated with each virus. You can also choose to delete the file containing the virus immediately or allow Postini to remove it after 14 days.
• The Delivered tab tracks all mail that you have chosen to remove from the Junk tab and have placed into your inbox.
• The Trash tab contains all of your undelivered and removed spam. All messages that you don’t deliver are automatically moved to the Trash after 14 days. Messages remain in the Trash for another 3 days before being permanently deleted.
• You can also "approve" or "block" senders by specific email addresses and domains, and adjust other filtering parameters.

On the top right you can find My Settings for configuration options, Log Out and Help.

• The My Settings link allows you to:

• Adjust filter sensitivities to determine how aggressively to filter your email for junk email.
• Maintain approved and blocked sender lists for individual senders, domains, and mail lists.
• Choose a language for displaying content in the Message Center.
• Choose a time zone for time-stamping messages you receive.
• Review a list of recently quarantined virus-infected messages.

The Postini Message Center will automatically close your session and log you out after 30 minutes of inactivity for security purposes. You may receive a login error if you attempt to refresh the page or use the browser's "Back" button. For information on resolving this issue, please visit the Postini FAQ page.

Postini's Functionality with Microsoft Outlook

If you use Microsoft Outlook 2003 or 2007 to read your NJIT email, Outlook provides additional features to help filter out spam. However, Outlook will only filter email that has successfully passed through the Postini filters. In general, the Postini system should be sufficient for managing your spam.

Spam filtered by Microsoft Outlook is routed to your "Junk email" folder. You should check this folder periodically for mail that may have been mis-routed by Outlook.  

Click here for more information and instructions on filtering rules for spam in Outlook 2003 and 2007.

How Postini filters spam

• All email received at NJIT passes through the Postini email filter.
  
• Postini will move any email suspected as spam into your personal Message Center.  The Message Center consolidates email from all of your email aliases (e.g. ucid@njit.edu, ucid@adm.njit.edu, first.last@njit,.edu, etc.).
  
• You will receive an automated Postini Quarantine Summary email from the email address postini@njit.edu once every 24 hours if you have quarantined email. This summary will contain a list of each quarantined message, and allow you to click Deliver and send the email directly from your Postini Message Center to your Inbox. You will not receive a Postini Quarantine Summary if no spam or viruses are identified on a specific day.
  
• Email left in your personal Message Center will automatically be moved to Trash after 14 days and permanently deleted from Trash after an additional 3 days. 

If you have any questions please check the Postini FAQ page before contacting the IST HelpDesk at x2900.