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E-Communications

Email Throttling

Email Throttling

Email service providers sometimes delay or even block the influx of email messages sent from another service provider as way of controlling how many emails their users receive; this is known as email throttling.  Email throttling is usually implemented if service providers feel a sender may be distributing SPAM or phishing emails.  During this time, email may be deferred (delivered later than intended) or even undelivered.  This may occur with no notification from the receiving service provider.  Ultimately, there is no way of predicting which messages could be delayed, and no way of alerting a UH-sender to inform them their message was eventually delivered.

UH and External Email Service Providers

During the Summer of 2017, UH began to receive a high volume of phishing/SPAM/malware emails which prompted University Information Technology (UIT) to implement configuration changes to the UH email gateway.  The changes would enhance detection processes and protect users from these malicious email messages.

In October 2017, UH experienced an email spamming incident which compromised the institution's relationship with several Internet Service Providers (ISP).  This caused several ISPs to throttle email from UH and email delivery to these providers was blocked or delayed.  UIT Security has worked with each affected ISP to implement additional controls and reestablish a good reputation with them.   By November, normal delivery to was renewed with most service providers, except Yahoo email servers and earthlink.net.

What is Being Done

UIT continues to work with service providers to improve UH’s email sender reputation. New controls are in place to more quickly identify compromised accounts which help stop SPAM email distributions before they become widespread. These changes are ongoing solutions that we proactively monitor to avoid

UIT recommends...

Faculty and Staff resources for bulk email - internal audiences

UIT's E-Communications (ECOMM) team provides options for bulk email distribution services to employees who need to contact currently affiliated faculty staff and student audiences. For more information about these services, contact ecomm@uh.edu.

Email submissions to All Faculty, All Staff and/or All Student audiences can be requested via http://uh.edu/email-request (CougarNet login)
 
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