Outlook Rule To Exclude Spammers

Copper Contributor

I'm receiving daily spam that has the same <full name> but a different E-mail address each day. I want to create an Outlook rule to redirect E-mail from this <full name> to a junk folder.  There is no condition on the conditions page of the rule wizard that tests for <full name>.  Is there a solution to detecting spammers that use rotating E-mail addresses?

 

Thanks in advance ...

2 Replies

Hi @hoosier_hoser 

 

Not easily, so far as I'm aware. Best I've come up with is:

 

1. In Outlook, open up Rules and Alerts, create a new Rule.

2. Create a new rule where email from person is moved to a folder.

 

spam2.png

 

3. click on the 'people or public group' link and in the pop up type the name you want to move to the junk folder. It will come up with an error that it cannot find the user.

 

spam3.png

 

4. Click on new user, and add the name only - leave the email blank.

 

Spam1.png

 

5. For the rule, change the folder to the junk folder.

 

This works on my test lab. That said, it will only work in my Outlook and not on OWA or phone. Should the spammer pick a different name or change the spelling slightly, then the rule will not process.

 

My personal advice for a long-term solution would be to look at your current spam filtering and see if anything can be adjusted to improve that rather than focus on individual attributes of spam which spammers can change fairly easily.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Mark

Mark:

 

Before asking for help, I tried to do something like you suggested.  The mistake I made was that I added the spammer to my contact list manually.  When I then tried to reference the manually added contact, the rule being created couldn't find it because it had no E-mail address.  Creating the contact within the process of creating the rule bypasses this E-mail address issue.

 

For anyone who follows this thread, the issue is the following:

  • The spammer continually changes the Send E-mail address.
  • The body of the E-mail is a digital image.  There is no text to detect.

There is nothing in the E-mail that can be detected with an Outlook rule.

 

Thanks for your help.  I realize that I am good until the spammer changes his <full name>.