220-1101 Question 114
Single answerSpam managementA small office reports that several users are receiving a large number of unwanted advertising emails every morning. The messages are not malware, but they are cluttering inboxes and causing users to miss legitimate customer emails. The email server and client software are functioning normally. Which action should the technician take FIRST to reduce this problem while minimizing the risk of blocking valid business messages?
- A
Enable or tune the email spam filter and review quarantine or junk-mail settings
- B
Delete the users' email profiles and recreate them on each workstation
- C
Block all external email addresses that are not already in each user's contact list
- D
Reimage the affected PCs to remove the unwanted messages
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
The best first action is to use spam-management controls already built into the organization's email platform or email client, such as spam filtering, junk-mail rules, safe/blocked sender lists, and quarantine review. In a real support scenario, a technician should choose the least disruptive corrective action that directly targets the issue. Because the problem is unsolicited email rather than malware, account corruption, or OS failure, adjusting spam controls is the appropriate response. This aligns with common email security best practices from major mail platforms and security guidance, which recommend filtering and reviewing false positives before implementing broad blocking rules that could interfere with legitimate business communication.
- A. Correct.
Correct. When users are receiving large volumes of unsolicited but non-malicious email, the most appropriate first step is to enable or adjust spam filtering on the mail system or client and verify how junk-mail or quarantine handling is configured. This directly addresses spam management and is a standard best practice because it reduces unwanted messages without unnecessarily disrupting normal email operations.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Recreating email profiles may help with client-side corruption, synchronization issues, or misconfigured accounts, but it does not address the root cause of unsolicited inbound email. The mail flow is working, and the issue is message classification, not profile integrity.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Blocking all unknown external senders would likely prevent legitimate customer, vendor, and partner communications from reaching users. Although it may reduce spam, it is far too restrictive for a business environment and creates a high risk of false positives.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Reimaging a PC is a drastic endpoint remediation step used for severe operating system compromise or persistent malware issues. In this scenario, the messages are identified as unwanted advertising email rather than evidence of local infection, so reimaging would not solve the server-side or account-level spam problem.