Do a lot of businesses block any email containing "password"?

[Makosuke]

I just ran into an interesting problem: It turns out that my campus' outgoing email servers refuse any message containing the word "password" anywhere in the body text. Incoming mail works normally (of course), lest you be unable to get a password emailed to you.

I assume that this is an effort to prevent phishing scams, but is this sort of a blunt object approach common in corporate/academic IT?

I mean, it seems like the most asinine, heavy-handed, annoyingly crude fix for a problem that I've heard recently. Some of the people in my lab have had to resort to attaching documents when they're trying to tell someone a password, or intentionally leaving one of the "s"s out.

Man.

 

[MisterMe]

...

I mean, it seems like the most asinine, heavy-handed, annoyingly crude fix for a problem that I've heard recently. Some of the people in my lab have had to resort to attaching documents when they're trying to tell someone a password, or intentionally leaving one of the "s"s out.

...

Welcome to the Real World. University and corporate security measures span the gamut between onerous and stupid. If your little annoyance has such an easy workaround, then it is not particularly onerous but it is very stupid.

For a time, my firm's virus filter would not permit me to send PDF files as attachments from my Mac. However, it would permit them from Windows.

Count your blessings.

Having said all that, your university's security measures are stupid only because they are ineffective. I'm having a really hard time thinking of a good reason to email passwords to friends. That kind of behavior makes life difficult for the rest of us.