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Speaking of SPAM...

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9 replies

by decalant

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The users on my network are receiving a lot of (exceptionally nasty, might I add...) porno email and other spam/UCE.

Can anybody suggest a product to help me filter or limit this type of email? Gentle payroll ladies receiving porn from "rapeman@yahoo.com" advertising just what you'd think. This is not a good scene!

We're running Exchange Server 5.5 SP4 on NT 4.0 Server SP6a. Soon to upgrade to Exchange 2k, though.

I've considered a product called "SurfControl", but the first time I tried to implement it the server it was installed on just crashed right away...

Thanks in advance,
Shannon

9 replies

by james r linn

I and many others are in a similar position.

From the research I've done, the best seems to be a service from Brightmail. They can filter your mail before it gets to you, and they have a good filter/algorithm to get most of the SPAM and reduce the false positives. And since its not on your mail server, it doesn't bring your mail server to a grinding halt.

If you want to bring it in house, there are commercial products based on the Brightmail technology as well.

James

by xpertdragon

Hmmm.SPAM, always an uphill battle. Battling and combating SPAM is a little different in each network and user environment. Feel free to do a re-post with further details about what email client your users are using....I would asume Outlook for the most part. Also, not all users are completely innocent when it comes to SPAM....some bring it upon themselves in one form another, and don't know how to combat it when it becomes out of control.

In the meantime, check out these web sites for some more insight:

http://www.spamhaus.org/rokso/index.lasso
http://combat.uxn.com/

Best of Luck!

Paul M. Chavez

by still_learning

I have also run into this situation. I have set up message rules to send the messages (from these addressees and to scan the subject line and message body for certain key words) to the deleted items folder. Also many of the reputable E-Mail hosts, do not like to have unhappy users and have a way for you to forward these types of E-Mails to them for review. I have forwarded all of these that I received to back to (in my case) abuse@yahoo.com. Hope this helps.

by jereg

All of the answers are good, I'd add a couple of things.
Giving out email addresses is a sure way to get spam. Don't give out your email address unless you have to.
Run Ad-Aware. Spyware on your PC can alert other to your address. Spyblocker is also good.
You can set your exchange server, (or whatever) to block IP addresses of spammers. This dosen't do a whole lot, since thaey are always changing servers. But it will stop some.
Keep looking for upcomming software. The VAR I deal with hasgotten so fed up with spam he's writing his own spam-blocking software to be released soon. I'm sure new anti-spam s/w is comming out every day.
Hope that helps.

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