Greatly Reduce SPAM

25 Jul 2008

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	Greatly Reduce SPAM

Solution This knowledge base article is filled with great tips on setting up your account to reduce 99.9% of spam in your inbox.

Create Mail Accounts:
Create mailboxes in your hosting control panel, Mail, Manage/Add/Remove Accounts. Click add an account to create each mailbox you require. It is best to not give these mailboxes too generic names as bots will target the most common names. An example of a generic name is webmaster@yourdomain.com

Default Address:
Once these are setup, in your hosting control panel go to Mail, Default Address, Set Default Address. Here enter
":fail: no such address here"
and click change. This will setup your account so that any mail sent to a mail account that you have not created to bounce back to the spammer. This also works fantastic in conjunction with our dictionary attack defense system. A dictionary attack is spam sent to common names @yourdomain.com. If a spammer sends to more than four invalid email addresses at your domain they will automatically be blocked from sending mail to the server.

SpamAssassin:
This is located under Mail, SpamAssassin. SpamAssassin is a great tool that analyzes the content of email and marks it as SPAM based on a score system. If an email contains a common subject known for SPAM or contains too many frequent words it will be marked as **SPAM**. An example is "Buy Viagra Now! Click Here"

If you are receiving legitimate email that is being marked as spam you can configure SpamAssassin to accept emails with the subject, from the sender, increase the score it requires to mark it as spam or disable it all together.

SpamBox:
You can also set a Spam Box. Any email that qualifies under the SpamAssassin system as SPAM will be sent directly to a SPAM box under the associated email account.

BoxTrapper:
BoxTrapper is an excellent tool which requires the mail sender to respond to an email sent back immediately from the server to verify they are sending the email. If you receive a lot of email daily this may be inconvenient. If this is a new account or spam is very bad and you cannot rename your mailbox then this can be a great feature to use.

Spam/Virus Protection Settings:
Linked from your control panels main page. You typically want to leave all these enabled. Each performs a separate function when scanning emails.

Virus Scanning:
Virus scanning uses the latest definition files on the server to scan email for any virus/trojans. This will not guarantee an email will not get through so it is best to still use an up-to-date anti-virus program on your PC.

Spam Scanning:
This option enables or disables SpamAssassin.

RBL checking:
Realtime Blackhole List, a list of IP addresses whose owners refuse to stop the proliferation of spam. The RBL usually lists server IP addresses from ISPs whose customers are responsible for the spam and from ISPs whose servers are hijacked for spam relay.

File Type Scanning:
Some viruses/worms have been spread by attachment in known file types. File Type Scanner is configured to block following file types; ".ade, .adp, .bas, .chm, .crt, .eml, .exe, .hlp, .hta, .inf, .ins, .isp, .jse, .lnk, .mdb, .mde, .msc, .msi, .msp, .pcd, .sct, .shs, .url, .vbs, .vbe, .wsf, .wsh, .wsc".

However ".bat, .cmd, .com, .cpl, .pif, .reg, .scr" attachments will not be accepted. If you need to send this file type then please package it up as a zip file and resend it.

Email Harvesters/Bots:
There are many programs that go out and scan websites specifically for email addresses. When located they will add the email address to a list which a spammer then uses to send out mail. It is best to never list an email address in text or html link on yours or anyone else�s website. If you are using a form on your site make sure the email address is not viewable by the browser. Most very basic html forms require the email address. We suggest creating an image with your email address in it or use an up to date PHP form which hides your email address. You can find many @
http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Form_Processing/

Free Link Pages/FFA Sites:
We do not recommend using these pages as your link may only last a few hours and are slammed with hundreds of other links which the search engines dismiss or even score your site negatively as a result. The object of these lists are to aquire your email address so that the webmaster of that site and people under him/her can send you SPAM. If you insist on using and submitting to these types of websites we recommend you create a new email account specifically for submitting and you will receive SPAM in that account instead of accounts you use daily.

Article Details

Article ID:

209

Created On:

14 Dec 2005 01:36 PM