How to prevent SPAM at best

Discussion regarding the Standard version.
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tobi
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 10:05 pm

How to prevent SPAM at best

Post by tobi »

Hi all,
I'm using your MailEnable Standard (Free) Edition and I like it very much. The only problem I have for some time the SPAM I receive is getting more and more. Therefore I tried to install "SpamAssassin in a box" but as far as I read it's not possible to use this solution with the Standard Edition. Is this right ?
Otherwise what it the best solution to filter SPAM messages when using the MailEnable Standard Edition ?

Thank you very much.

MailEnable-Ian
Site Admin
Posts: 9738
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2004 4:44 am
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Re: How to prevent SPAM at best

Post by MailEnable-Ian »

Hi,

You might want to look into using MXScan or MagicSpam:

MagicSpam - http://www.magicspam.com

MXScan - http://www.mxuptime.com
Regards,

Ian Margarone
MailEnable Support

fbmaxwell
Posts: 24
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 3:52 pm

Re: How to prevent SPAM at best

Post by fbmaxwell »

I am not a fan of trying to filter out spam post-receive. I want my mail server to refuse to accept the message. Every time your mail server accepts the spam, the spammer has confirmation that he's got a valid email address, so expect the spam to keep coming.

To that end, I recommend the following:

1. Use effective DNS blacklisting. I use four blacklist and have found that the warnings about timeouts with four or more blacklists can be ignored (unless you're running your mail server on dial-up modem :D )

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2. Use unique addresses and shut each down if/when it starts getting spam. This is really your strongest line of defense. You're screwed if you give out the same email address on your resume, to your friends, to your family (including the ones who send out "funny" things to a CC: list of 50 recipients at a time), to the local interest group you belong to, to your bank, to register for an online forum, etc. When I signed up for an account here, I gave the address "_mailenable@{mydomain}". If I start receiving ads at that address about horny coeds who want to meet me or emails from a Nigerian prince who needs my help getting to his family fortune, I know that the address list here has been compromised. So I will shut down that address and provide a new one. That way, I only have to change it in one place and I can track where leaks occur. This is how I was one of the first to identify Ameritrade, J&R Music World, Lifelock, and Snapfish data breaches.

3. Block email from entire countries using a firewall. I use pfSense for this, with the pfBlockerNG add-on to construct blacklists of countries I don't want connecting to my mail (and FTP) server. As a private individual, this option is available to me, while it would not be for an ISP. This is a highly effective means of combating spam. Many Asian, South American, and former Soviet Bloc countries spew out massive quantities of spam hiding behind ISPs that turn a blind eye to it, many of which just ignore abuse complaints. You can always add exceptions if you have a company or person in a blocked country, but I've found that's almost never necessary.

I hope that this will be of some value to you or others.

Regards,
Fred

Sitepoint
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 1:47 pm

Re: How to prevent SPAM at best

Post by Sitepoint »

Hi,

could you give me a hand how to setup the blacklists? I have no idea what I have to write to Zone and Response and what to choose by lookup type and Record type.

I'm using the three standard blacklists Barracuda, Spamcop and SpamhausZEN, but I see you added some others. I want to give them a try too. ;)

Thanks for your support.


Cheers,


Tom

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