Filter Out Messages from Virus Infected Colleagues

 

Certain viruses send to random names at known domains, so you may find you get emails for, say John.Smith@yourdomain when you don't even have such a person.  There are a number of ways to reduce the impact of these, the best is to only have the addresses you use set up at your ISP.  However there are cases when this is not practical - especially if your domain is routed to another account.  You might think that you could handle it in the Junk Mail filters, but no; because these emails may come form valid addresses.  In which case you can set up a "whitelist" is MS Outlook, and then filter everything else to a junk folder of your own.  This is what you do:-

1.  Create a new folder in your Personal Folders:   
        In mail, in the navigation column on the left
        Right click on Personal Folders and select New Folder
            Give it a name e.g. Blacklist and ensure that the second box says that the folder contains Mail and Post items.
            Click OK
 

2. Make sure that all your valid email addresses are in your Contacts list.

 

3. Create a Distribution list containing the valid email addresses:
      Press Ctrl+Shift+L to get to a form to do this and use the Select Members button.
        Give the distribution list a name e.g. Whitelist
        Click Save and Close
4. Select from the menu - Tools - Rules and Alerts,
        then press the New Rule button.

 

5. In the Rules Wizard Dialog click the Radio Button labelled Start from a Blank Rule.
        Step 1: should have Check Messages when they arrive highlighted
        Step 2: should have Apply this rule after the message arrives.
                Click Next

 

6.  Click Next in the next dialog. 
        And Yes to the message that says the rule will be applied to every message.
7.  In the top box find and select the items:
        Move it to the specified folder (this should be the top item) and
        Stop processing more rules (near the bottom of the list so scroll down)

    In the bottom box click on specified
        Select your new folder (Blacklist)
        Click OK
    Click Next
8. In the top box find and select the item:
        Except if sent to people or distribution list (Careful - not Except if FROM, the one you want is well down the list)
            And in the bottom box click on people or distribution list
                Select your distribution list e.g. Whitelist form the contacts and click OK
                    At this point you may get a message to use the names rather than the list - click OK
                  Then click Next to move on.

 

9.  Give the Rule a name e.g Whitelisting
        Click Finish.

 
10.  If you already have some rules you need to decide where in the list you need to have this rule and position it using the up and down arrows in the menu bar. The bottom is the safe bet - i.e. run all you previous rules first.
      

Now try sending an email to the proverbial John.Smith@yourdomain just to see if it works.