Dear Colleagues,

We write to update you on the problems we have been having with campus email.

As of Friday, we have been taken off all blacklists.  This means that you should not have any problem sending email to people outside of the campus email system.

However, we are still not completely out of the woods yet.

In order to prevent a recurrence of these problems, it is necessary for us to take reasonable measures to ensure that we do not experience the same issues again.  The next step we must take is to block certain file attachments, since file attachments are one of the main avenues for attacks on our email system.  Included in the list of attachments that will be blocked are any archive file formats, such as .zip files, that are password protected or encrypted. This is because our systems cannot scan compressed files that are encrypted/protected to check for malware, viruses, or phishing attempts.   Archive files that are not encrypted or password protected will not be blocked. We plan to implement blocking of specific attachment files this evening.  Filtered file types are listed on the CITES Security web site at security.illinois.edu.

If there is a blocked file type you need to send or receive, CITES recommends using Box to send and receive files. Box can be used to share files with people at Illinois and people not affiliated with the University. More information about this change and how to send and receive files with Box can be found on the CITES Security web site at security.illinois.edu.

We again thank everyone for their patience and understanding.  Please feel free to contact us with any concerns at 217-244-7000 or email us at consult@illinois.edu.

Sincerely,

Greg Gulick, Deputy CIO, University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign
Mike Corn, Chief Privacy & Security Officer, University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign