[WEB4LIB] Blocking attachments

[Brian Williams]

On Tue, 27 Jun 2000, Garet Nelson wrote:

> Please excuse if this has been discussed recently - I checked the archives
> and was unable to find any reference....
> 
> Our IT Department is now blocking all incoming email attachments, including
> Word documents (they are blocking anything with VBS script and some Word
> documents have VBS in the header.) Although I see the value in this in that
> we haven't been shut down due to rampant viruses -- blocking to this extent
> causes us real problems. For one, the sender does not know the receiver is
> not receiving the mail they sent because there is no bounce back.
> 
> I have two questions for the list: is blocking to this extent common
> practice (or as we are being told "best practice" in colleges/universities)?
> And, if so how are people able to conduct business?
> 

I think blocking or filtering is fairly common by now. We filter on some
strings and then send those to a file where we can look at them. Anything
safe is sent on, but if that volumn were bigger, that would be difficult.



Brian Williams			brianw at multnomah.lib.or.us
Automation Manager	  	5032044627 at page.metrocall.com (pager)
Multnomah County Library	 (503) 248-5227 (v) 
801 SW 10th  Portland, OR 97205  (503) 248-5226 (f)