Tag Archives: spam

How Should You Report Spam Mail For Quick Action?

We are all affected by the scourge of spam mail. Many of us receive thousands of emails which are fortunately filtered out by our email services or email software. The main issue that everyone has with spam is that it prevents us from noticing genuine mail, which may get lost in the noise of continuous junk. Spam delays or prevents us from getting to our legitimate or important mails. There are various agencies around the world, in many countries dedicated to fighting spam mail and protecting the interests of email users across service providers. There are various agencies which you can complain to about spam. This article explains how you can complain about spam mail and get some effective remedy.

SpamCop

SpamCop.net is a spam reporting service which complains about spam on your behalf, to the service provider of your spammer. When you report a spam mail to spamcop, it forwards your complaint to the correct authority in charge of the IP Address or network of the origin of the spam mail. It picks out the Abuse Complaint details of the network provider and sends a pre-drafted email filled in with the details applicable to your complaint. The best part about spamcop is the enforce ability of the complaint. SpamCop provides spam activity information and statistics to various anti-spam filter services which use these details to block mail even before they reach a mail server. If you are blacklisted due to a spamcop complaint, your IP Address will no longer be able to send out emails to people who are using those blacklists and filters. If that happens, mails from your server will be delayed or will bounce. If your are providing an email service, your service will be disrupted till the spam doesnt stop.

The Abuse Email Address of the IP Address Owner

The email address of the network owner maybe a bit hard to find out, but it should surely yield some results. Most Network Operation Centers, Data Centers and Hosting Providers take abuse complaints very seriously. Action on abuse complaints includes disconnection of services or even temporary suspension of the offender’s service. The abuse contact is supposed to be a one-point communication address by which anyone aggrieved by the behaviour of a certain subscriber or network can report the issues to that person. You can find out the abuse email address of a domain name by visiting abuse.net or simply sending a mail to the default abuse address i.e. abuse@domain_name.com or postmaster@domain_name.com where domain_name is the actual domain name which appears to be sending out spam.

Government Spam Reporting Systems

Various countries around the world have passed anti-spam laws to help tackle the scourge of spam mail. Federal Trade Commission in the USA, Canada Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) Reporting Center in the Canada host an email spam reporting service, which in turn forwards your complaint to the appropriate network operator. The limitation of these bodies is that they may not be able to do much for email or hosting services which are located beyond its territorial jurisdiction.

Mail Client or Webmail Plugin

Nowadays there are many tools available to email users for reporting spam or sending complaints about email service abuse. Webmail services like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail have a “Report Spam” button or a “This look like spam” which not only places a complaint but also filters out similar messages in future, by educating the spam control system. Mail client’s like Outlook also have various add-ins to report and delete spam. Some Anti-virus and Firewall software offer integrated email scanning which automatically reports suspicious bulk emails to a central command system.

How You Maybe Contributing To Email Scams?

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How You Maybe Contributing To Email Scams?

A large number of email users have been victims of online scams through emails and internet media. Many users have suffered financial loss, while others were just saved from getting an empty wallet. But despite this, there are many email users who are careless and negligent about the security of their email account, thereby jeopardizing the security of other email and internet users and encouraging hackers and attackers in having a free hand at mischief. This article explains how you also maybe contributing to email scams and email spam by being negligent about security. Are you going to be a victim or an accomplice?

Weak Passwords

Using the same password for all your email accounts can be make a successful attack exponentially damaging. It is like having a common key for all your assets, including your car, your garage, your front door and back door. If someone gets hold of the key, they can do quite a lot of damage. Having a weak password for your email account makes you as vulnerable. In 2014 the most commonly used password was ‘123456’. SplashData’s list of frequently used passwords shows that many people continue to put themselves at risk by using weak, easily guessable passwords.

“Passwords based on simple patterns on your keyboard remain popular despite how weak they are,” said Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData. “Any password using numbers alone should be avoided, especially sequences. As more websites require stronger passwords or combinations of letters and numbers, longer keyboard patterns are becoming common passwords, and they are still not secure.”

Phished!

Having your email account compromised is not the end of the attack. Your email address is most likely going to be used as a tool to attack other unsuspecting email account holders who have also not taken security seriously. Attacks on your email account cascade into attacks on email systems which can further snowball into attacks against an entire ISP. Credit Card Frauds, Net Banking Scams, High Security Facility Penetration and many other similar scams take place on a regular basis due to compromised email systems. You can use a time-tested spam filtering such as SpamAssassin to remove unwanted email from entering your inbox and junk folders. It is also important to know how to identify junk mail even if it’s from a trusted source. Carefully identifying a malicious email can help to fight spam and scams.

Bad Security Practices

Opening emails from someone you don’t know or don’t trust is a bad practice. Sending any sensitive information or exceptionally personal information over email can also be damaging. Replying to, clicking on links within, or even unsubscribing from spam emails typically only informs the sender that they have found an email address to which they’ll send more spam emails or target in future. Report the message as spam instead.

Being alert and attentive about email activity and suspicious behavior of your email account can help make the internet safer for other email users as well and prevent spam mail, phishing scams and also harassment.

Please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. Thanks - Suspicious Mail

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We often receive mails from our clients regarding a suspicious mail which was received by them from some Chinese company called Asia Registry or something similar which sounds authoritative. This article aims to clarify what this mail is about and why you should not respond to it and treat it as junk.

The mail in question:

From: “Albert Liu” <[email protected]>
Subject: (clients domain name) CN domain and keyword
To: (the domain name holder)

(Please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. Thanks)

We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On Jan 8, 2015, we received an application from Huabao Ltd requested “(client’s domain name)” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names. But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China?

Kind regards

Albert Liu
General Manager
Asia Registry (Headquarters)
3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road,
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200030, China
Tel: +86 21 6191 8696
Mobile: +86 138 1642 8671
Fax: +86 21 6191 8697
Web: www.asiaregistry.org.cn

What is this mail really about?

This mail is basically just spam mail, which is being sent to you to scare you into believing that you may lose your domain name or somebody else is trying to use your trade mark. The ultimate aim is to get you to respond to them, and show interest in purchasing the .cn variant of your domain name from them. Eg: If you own garbagelogistics.com then they will suggest that someone is trying to register garbagelogistics.cn and to prevent them from registering it, you should book it first.

How did they get my email address?

They mostly looked up your email address from the public WHOIS record of an existing domain name that you own.

What should I do with the mail? Should I respond to it?

Do NOT respond to the mail. Just delete it.

Domain has exceeded the max defers and failures per hour (5/5 (100%)) allowed. Message discarded.

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Error Message:

Domain domainname.com has exceeded the max defers and failures per hour (5/5 (100%)) allowed. Message discarded.

What does it mean?

This bounce message means that the senders domain name (as given in the error message) has been sending out mail which is not getting delivered to the intended recipients. Due to a large number of such messages failing to be delivered, the mail server has prevented any more mails being sent by the domain name, for the rest of the hour.

Why are all my mails bouncing with this error message?

This is a security measure active on our server which is triggered when a “sufficiently significant” number of mails from an email account bounce or are undelivered. This is indicative of spammy activity or a compromised account.

Possible reasons for getting this bounce message are:

One or more email accounts on your domain have been compromised and are sending out spam mail which is failing.
You are sending out marketing emails to persons who have not subscribed to your newsletters or marketing emails. Always take permission before sending out marketing emails.
You are sending out marketing emails to an old email list, out of which many email addresses are shut or no longer active. Update your list and verify each email address before sending mails.
The recipient has blocked your email address knowingly or by mistake. Sometimes an overzealous mail filter or firewall on the recipients server may also be the cause.
You have some forwarders set up which are bouncing messages (probably due to the forwarded mailbox being over quota)
The recipients mail server has detected your domain name or email address as a spam source and has blocked you.
The recipients mail server is facing some issue and preventing mails from being delivered.

What should I do so that I can resume normal mailing?

Many a times, the best thing to do is stop all mailing activity and identify the problematic recipient addresses. Refer to our article on Tracing Email Deliveries and Failures.

if your email address has been compromised or hacked refer to our article: How email accounts get hacked

If your website form or page has been hacked see our article: How to recover from a hacked website

I am not able to send mail from any email address on the affected domain. For how much time are all the addresses blocked?

Yes. Your entire domain name is prevented from sending any more mails out from our server. This is a security measure to ensure that our server cannot be used to send out unsolicited bulk mail or spam.

The restriction on sending any more emails will last for 1 hour from the time the last email bounced or delivery was deferred. So if the last of the mails bounced at 10:08 a.m. you will be able to resume normal email delivery only at 11:09 a.m.

Will I continue to receive incoming emails on my domain?

Yes. Incoming emails are not affected by this security measure and will continue to work through the block period.

Why am I suddenly getting so much spam mail?

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Mr. Green’s business email account hardly received any spam mail. Maybe the odd 2 - 3 emails per week announcing that he has won millions of dollars. Nothing more. All of a sudden, he noticed a sudden spurt in the amount of junk mail that was hitting his Inbox. He was the target of a massive spam attack which kept his phone beeping through the day.

Why am I suddenly getting so much spam mail?

He was sure to ask us the “Why me?” question. In an attempt to answer the many questions of spam targets, we have listed some Frequently Asked Questions below:

Where do they get my email address from?

From a Friends Contact List / Address Book which was hacked.
“A man is known by the company he keeps”
Malware or virus on your computer
They just Googled it
Its on your own / company website
It was published in the newspaper
It was so obvious ([email protected])
You replied to a spam mail

How do I stop these mails?

Remove your published email address
Remove any signatures with your email address
Spam Filters are a good option
Custom Email Filters may also work if setup intelligently
Talk to your Hosting Provider

Do you’ll use a Spam Filter software?

Yes. HostingXtreme uses multiple types of spam filters to ensure that spam is checked and removed with minimum resource usage for our server.

Is there a 100% way to stop spam?

Yes. There is a 100% way to stop automated spam mails. Its called a “Challenge-Response system”. It is NOT recommended by many people.

The “Challenge-Response System” BoxTrapper Spam Trap, keeps all incoming mail in a temporary folder, without delivering it to your inbox. The sender is sent an automated reply, asking them to confirm if they have actually sent the mail. Once they confirm by clicking the confirmation link, their mail will be delivered to you.

Can you make the spam filter stricter?

Yes we can. But you risk losing your genuine mail as well.

Why are they targetting me? What will they get by sending me mails?

You are most likely a random target.

“Prevention is better than Cure”

SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data: host smtp.xyz.net: 552 5.2.0 Basf25sdf01dfgji2SC9 IB212 msg rejected as spam

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What does this error message mean?

The message returned by the recipients server, indicates that the message which you sent has traces of a spam mail. This may be due to some long or suspicious links or attachments in the mail.

Many service providers filter email messages containing a link, attachment, or pattern caught by their filters as spam or a possible virus.

How do I solve this issue?

Try to cut down the number of links or any long links and resend the mail. This should be solved by removing the suspicious content.

How to prevent your email from being marked as a spam?

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The subject field of the email should be simple but not blank.
Avoid using punctuation in your message subjects, particularly exclamation marks! Eg: SURPRISE!!!, “Fantastic deal!!!”
Try to avoid using all capitalized words in the subject. Eg: Dont use the subject as PAYMENT DETAILS or DAILY REPORT.
Where possible try not to use the words used by spammers, like “free, guarantee, great offer, hello etc”.
The use of lots of dollar signs in your emails will increase the chance of your emails being blocked by another network. Eg: “$$$ make money, make millions, $$$”
Spam is often HTML and usually has coloured backgrounds. Your message may also look like spam if you use coloured text.
Plain text emails are less likely to be filtered as spam.
Avoid using lots of images which look slick and professional as marketing material.
If you put dozens of names in your BCC (blind copy) field in your email programme the newsletter could be marked as spam, so avoid it.
Many viruses are hidden in attachments so spam filters are often programmed to block attachments from unknown email addresses. Avoid attachments of exc., zip. files if you can.