As many of you are aware, a significant number of computer viruses that have affected our campus (including Klez, Dumaru, MiMail, Bagle, and Mydoom) send themselves via e-mail with differing types of attachments.

We have implemented the virus scanning software on our e-mail server to filter out many viruses. We've also blocked certain attachment types which often contain viruses or programs which can cause problems when they're clicked on.

What this means is that if you SEND or RECEIVE an email with an attachment which ends in the extensions

.exe or .scr or .pif or .cmd or .bat

This will NOT affect most standard attachments like documents, pictures, spreadsheets - including Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.

Also, files with single (') or double quote marks (") will not be sent by the mail server. These special characters are often used to attack the mail server itself to gain access. For example, if you send an attachment named with a single or double quote (Doug's Email Attachment.doc or "Movie" review.doc) the attachment will NOT go through.

Please remember that the message WILL go through - just the attachment with the message will be replaced. This is done so the receiver will know that something was attached, but that it has been removed.

The recipient of the message will see the message:

The Original Attachment has been REPLACED

at the bottom of the e-mail message that is sent to them.

When you open that attachment that is included in the message, it will read:

The original document has been removed from this message.
The document was removed because

Possible Malicious Email Content Detected

The name of the original document was name of originally attached file

- Saint Mary's College Systems Group Email Messaging