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Is it just us or the SPAMs are getting worse?

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by tech06

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We've been getting more and more spams thesedays, it is worst on Mondays users could get over 100 junk emails over weekend. I am wondering what countermeasures other organizations are using. Has anyone used a third-party spam filtering service? Would greatly appreciate any input on this.

Thanks!

21 replies

by jdmercha

Our spam filter blocks 90% of the email sent to our domain. Still I get about 10 a day that slip through the filter.

by tech06

Mind if I ask what spam filter do you use? We've heard about a subsription to a thrid-party filtering service (fee for each account) and it's supposed to filter out over 99% of junk emails.

by dr dij

an article recently suggested you use separate emails for home / friends, general email, and registering for sites. Changed the reg one if spam gets too bad.

Using the email that comes with your ISP is silly as you probably need it to send out email, can't change as easily.

Use service like Google, or Yahoo, pretty good spam filters.

I have a catch-all for my domain. Sadly, regular companies are spamming me: Spammers forge the 'from' address on emails and I get the rejected / undeliverable bounces.

Just the other day, some spammer sc*m in China (which I know by looking at bounce emails) spammed in my domains name, and I got 4700+ bounces. NOrmally I get 150 to 300 a day mixed spam and bounces.

If you have a company and you reject spam based on whatever rules, please DO NOT send bounced messages to the sender. Like the spammer is interested in that anyway, if they even get them.

Now 90% of the email will be spam shortly.

by danlm

And found that almost all came from China/Korea. He got ticked, and blocked both nations at the router. He actually released a cidr list of both nations which is updated regularly.

I found, when analyzing my logs from probes against my home file server. That those two nations are basically the main culprits. So, I use this guy's cidr and block all access to that machine from China/Korea.

Do I think all Chinese/Koreans are spam masters. Absolutely not, far from it actually. I just think there is a boat load of compromised machines in those nations.

Dan

by simonhamilton1

I've recently discovered that implementing SPF(Sender Framework Policy) has drastically reduced the sender address forgery for us. It is easy to implement, but you must have access and be able to edit your Zone file(s). I must stress that it could not be easier.

http://www.openspf.org/

You will have to allow time for propogation(the normal 24-72hrs) and can check SPF fuctionality for you zone file with this SPF Query tool here:

http://www.kitterman.com/spf/validate.html

In addition, spam filtering tools(*correctly configured!*) are also needed. I use Spamassassin and since combining the two(SPF+spamassassin), oh and using a rbls(sendmail-rbls), spam sightings have dropped of to virtually nothing.

When users start approaching you asking if something is wrong with the email stating they've only received five emails today, you will smile(even if its only on the inside) shortly before offering to completely reduce any spam to said email user account by removing them completely from the system.

by cactus pete

It has gotten much worse lately. I block 98.5% of mail before it gets to my users.

I use Tumbleweed products.

First, my gateway is the EMF product. In that I set the rbl to use zen.spamhaus.org. The next layer is their MailGate appliance. (They bought it from Corvigo)

MOST of the mail is stopped through the RBL. I highly recommend you use one. The MailGate then scans what is left and traps most of what might still pass the RBL.

I'd also point out that the most effective means to reduce your spam is to make sure email addresses aren't harvestable, and that the users are educated.

by axg

My company uses a 3rd party spam blocking service. EACH DAY they filter out in the order of 15,000 spam messages addressed to our email domain.

We only have hundreds of users so this number is significant.

It is much nicer to only deal with valid email.

by Member 19470174

I've been using a third-party spam scanning service for a few years now, and I'd highly recommend them to anyone who is looking for a solution to filtering their own spam. It's Mail Protector, take a lok at their site http://www.mailprotector.net - they are very good and quite reasonably priced.

by sean-leonard

We have been using a third party service for several months now,www.mxlogic.com, and have cut spam down to just about nothing. Since all of the Emails go to their servers first get filtered before coming to me so all of the spam uses THEIR bandwidth and THEIR server resources not mine. With a shop of just over 50 users for the month of Feb there were 247197 messages using a total of 927.8 meg of bandwidth that was stopped before it hit any of my resources and with the quarantine for users being held on their servers I am not even storing questionable items. They have a very friendly user interface and the ability to do domain and user settings so mail administration headache of spam has all but disappeared. We pay just under 1.00 per user(with up to 5 alias per user) per month and they even have a trial offer. When you setup it up they won?t bill you for thirty days when you get your first bill if you don?t like the service just call them and discontinue service and you owe nothing. I have never looked back since switching to them and couldn?t imagine bringing that headache back

by why me worry?

I've used Postini and they do a good job of filtering 99% of the crap that comes in, but they become a single point of failure if they have a problem with their systems because your MX records point to their SMTP servers, not yours. They get the email, scan it, and then relay it to the customer. I've seen delayed emails because one of their server had an issue with the clock.

by why me worry?

sending me auto-generated emails about useless and/or bogus positions God knows where. These bottom feeding leeches mine the job boards like Hotjobs and Monster, never bother reading the actual resumes, and then blast hundreds of emails about jobs that have little to nothing to do with my actual skills. Also, they expect me to do their work for them by forwarding the email to people who may be interested. Sorry, but I don't have time to play wannabe headhunter and if those headhunters can't target the appropriate people, it's not by job or responsibility to do it for them.

by cactus pete

Postini gives you several different MX records, and they have a geographically distributed fail-back architecture. They pretty much aren't a single point of failure (at least not in MX terms).

Additionally, they are about $1 per mailbox per month.

by why me worry?

but if that have an issue which affects their entire infrastructure, your email isn't getting delivered.

by jdclyde

It was through our service provider, and it started out good and it did cut down on spam.

the problem is, it also started to cut down on our legit emails too.

Any moron that uses CBL lists and such should be whipped with a soggy noodle.

We now have a dual layer method. I stop about 600 per day at the firewall, and the email admin gets another 300 with software running on the mail server.

There are a few people that get 100 a day, while others get 2 or 3. When the few that get a lot complain about it, I just tell them to start being more careful what web sites they submit their email address to, because no one else in the company is having the same problem.

by av .

I've had alot of luck with it. It uses a layered approach to spam. Its bayesian filter is awesome after you train it. It also has whitelists, blacklists, SPF (sender policy framework), harvesting, keyword and many other filters AND it won't take a big bite out of your budget.

Yes, it takes a good month or 2 to train the bayesian filter, but after that most users will only see 1 or 2 spams a day in their inbox. Still, some people get more, but its usually because they signed up for something that sold their name.

I use this in conjunction with the Exchange Intelligent Message Filter. That gives any spam that gets trapped an SCL rating, so its easier to deal with it when you need to clean out the spam trap.

Another interesting technology I've been looking at deploying is called Deep Six from deep6tech.com. I wouldn't get rid of Mail Essentials, just add that into the mix.
You can never have enough spam filters.

We had looked into outsourcing our email, but our company didn't like the idea of the mail being handled by a 3rd party.

AV

by dr dij

I'm on an ISP, all I can do is receive the email. There is a control panel somewhere, web accessable but the spam from the chinese guy came to me in the form of undeliverable emails from largely american companies, with the forged return address, so blocking china would have helped only so much.

by nicholas

I think spam is much worse these days. A lot of people are unaware of all the spam they are actually receiving because of the some excellent products that filter or block the spam before they get to ones in-box. It is the new and innovative types of spam we are seeing, in order for spammers to get around anti-spam measures, that IT professionals have to be consistently aware of.

Has anybody tried SpamRats RBL? If so can you post a reply of what you think. SpamRats is a free Set of fully-automated and Real Time BlackLists designed to target various Trojans, Bots, infected PCs and other IP address which are being used to send out spam. Another good tool to look at for unwanted bulk email marketing is MIPSpace. I have got a lot of good feedback from users.

One could try filtering their email through a service like CityEamil that uses both SpamRats and MIPSpace.

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