How do I…?
Reduce spam
Introduction
The spam problem has now reached epic levels, with users continuously barraged with unwanted mail.
Begin fighting the problem by learning the basics of stopping spam and getting resources at your
disposal. We've gathered the articles featured in our "How do I…" resource center for you here in one
download. Use them to reduce spam in your organization.
The "How do I…?" resource center covers many topics. From system intrusions to disaster recovery to
career advice, you'll find help with some of your most common IT woes.
Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 1
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... 1
How to stop spam and keep e-mail moving ........................................................................................... 2
Lock IT Down: Know your resources in the war against spam .......................................................... 4
Talking Shop: TechRepublic members offer battle plan for spam..................................................... 7
Related resources................................................................................................................................... 26
About TechRepublic.............................................................................................................................. 27
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How to stop spam and keep e-mail moving
By Brian Hook
Spam is not only a nuisance, but it can also be hazardous to your network. Many computer systems are increasingly
vulnerable to viruses and cyberattacks, many of which arrive by unsolicited e-mail.
The National Research Council estimated that U.S. businesses spent about $12.3 billion to clean up the damage
from spam in 2001 and predicted even higher costs in 2002. How can IT managers stop the proliferation of spam
without hindering internal communications?
The Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, part of the National Research Council, blames the growing
problem on firms that are not implementing available security measures. Researchers from the group urged
companies to make use of available technologies, such as e-mail and Web filtering software, to reduce the risks to
corporate networks.
SurfControl is also tracking the growth of spam with its RiskFilter database, part of the SuperScout Email Filter
software. The RiskFilter database is a constantly updated Signature Database List of junk e-mail.
“Companies are seeing a huge increase in spam and junk e-mail,” said Kelly Haggerty, SurfControl's vice president
for Global Product Development. "This kind of traffic can seriously pollute a network, and there are a few simple steps
systems managers can take to alleviate many of the headaches,” said Haggerty.
Here are Haggerty's top five antispam tips for IT managers:
1.
Tell users never to respond to spam e-mail messages. Sending a reply, even if it's a request to be taken off
a list, confirms a user at an address and encourages the spammer to send more mail.
2.
Include guidance in your Internet use policy forbidding the use by employees of their company e-mail
addresses when surfing or shopping online.
3.
Subscribe to "real time black hole" list services that block delivery of e-mails from known spammers.
4.
Subscribe to a Signature Database List, which prevents the delivery of known spam and other digital junk.
And make sure you update the subscription list regularly to ensure the most complete protection.
5.
Install content filtering tools that scan and block e-mail messages that include suspect text like "Get Rich
Quick" or similar subject words and phrases, and those with multiple forwards or huge distribution lists.
Scouting antispam services
There are plenty of antispam services on the market. Brightmail is just one example of many. It currently serves
eight of the top 11 ISPs with antispam technology. Brightmail reported that over the past month, there has been a 16
percent increase in spam attacks.
To fight the increase, Brightmail has a spam attack analysis center staffed 24 hours a day by e-mail experts. When a
new spam attack is launched, Brightmail picks it up through its hundreds of thousands of e-mail addresses placed at
strategic domains across the Internet.
The spam experts quickly analyze the spam and write filtering rules that will block it out before the attack can reach
most e-mail users among its clients.
MessageLabs’ SkyScan Anti-Virus service is another provider that intercepts offending e-mails at the Internet level,
before the spam reaches customers’ networks. MessageLabs estimates that U.S. inboxes will receive more than 62
billion spam e-mails this year.
SkyScan stops unsolicited e-mail from entering a business's network by checking all incoming mail against
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recognized public blacklists, which detail e-mail addresses for known spam offenders. In addition, customers can
create their own blacklists.
John Harrington, director of marketing at MessageLabs, said it is also important for IT managers to educate end
users. He said a lot of the problems could be overcome by implementing the simple tips noted earlier and by
implementing a managed service.
Rick Romkey, general manager and chief operation officer at Activis acknowledged that these managed services
may not be able to stop all spam, however. Activis also provides IT managers with a service called e:)scan. It also
traps spam before it hits the company servers.
“First and foremost, don't expect that this will stop all spam. It is a best-effort to reduce the amount of noise that
reaches an employee's desktop, and e:)scan can allow an administrator to set the sensitivity threshold used when
scanning e-mails for spam,” said Romkey.
“If a high level of sensitivity is selected, e:)scan will block and quarantine more potential spam e-mail than at lower
levels.”
Let users help manage spam
Yori Nelken, chief technology officer and founder of Banter Inc. said that it is important for IT managers to talk with
the users before implementing these types of services. Banter Server provides a system that uses languageprocessing technologies to manage incoming e-mails.
“What one person may believe to be spam may be deemed by another in the same organization to be informative,”
said Nelken.
“Survey your users or employees and figure out exactly what they perceive as spam. From that survey, create a map
of what it is exactly you're trying to block.”
With Banter Server, an IT manager could decide whether to block material on a corporate level, department level, or
personal level. The ability to fine-tune the process on each level is done by constantly providing feedback to the
system.
But even with spam blocking services and programs, IT managers still have to deal with spam that sneaks through
the system undetected. Ted Brockwood, IT manager at KVO Public Relations said he deals with this problem on a
daily basis.
He uses a product called Trend Antivirus to scan incoming mail. “I generally archive anything that might be spam;
then, I sift through the archive every day to ensure the filter hasn’t inappropriately blocked a message,” said
Brockwood.
“Blocking spam is very time-intensive. We're blocking anywhere from 100-400 pieces of junk mail a day while we only
have 45 active mailboxes here. And even with a product as solid as Trend's, we're still finding spam gets through as
the spammers find more creative ways.”
Kaitling Duck Sherwood, author of Overcome Email Overload, said that the main problem with filtering technology is
that it is a pass-fail system.
“Unfortunately, while a given feature may mean that something is ‘usually’ spam, that doesn’t mean that it is ‘always’
spam. A better strategy is to use fuzzy logic,” said Sherwood.
“Scoring is one way to do this. For example, if the message is from someone I know, add 200 points. If it's got an
embedded image, subtract 100 points. If it doesn't have a ‘real name,’ subtract 50 points. Then, kill anything lower
than a certain value.”
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Lock IT Down: Know your resources in the war
against spam
By Becky Roberts
Just last week I received eight credit card offers, twelve sexually explicit ads, six ads for online pharmaceuticals, and
numerous other solicitations all not so subtly designed to part me from my money. I’m being spammed on a daily
basis.
Since the first spam, sent in 1978 by Einar Stefferud, this particularly irritating form of advertising has grown to
where, according to a May 2003 article in Information Week, unprotected e-mail users waste an average of 200
minutes processing spam for every 1,000 messages they receive—adding up to an unbelievable 3.5 hours of lost
productivity per person per month. And if the loss in productivity is not a sufficiently compelling reason to apply
resources to the war on spam, just consider the ramifications of the offended employee shocked by the contents of a
message bringing a hostile work environment suit against the company.
So if you’ve made the decision to filter incoming e-mail, your next step is to determine exactly how. A basic search on
the Internet will reveal a confusing plethora of alternative options, products, methods, and services. How do you
decide which is the best choice for your environment? Regardless of whether you decide to utilize a service,
purchase an add-on for your e-mail server, buy a client-based product or filter at the periphery of your network, a
basic understanding of spam control methodologies will facilitate your decision making process. Here’s an evaluative
summary of a few of the methodologies most frequently employed.
Content filtering
(Example products/services: ESafe, GFI MailEssentials and SpamKiller)
This method scans the subject line and/or message contents for specified individual words and phrases. Most
products that offer this form of filtering supply a canned list of words that can then be customized to meet your
specific needs. While this method is appealing in its simplicity, it’s too crude to be seriously considered as a total
solution. If the list of words and phrases is sufficiently comprehensive to block most spam, it will also block many
legitimate messages, especially if used in a multilanguage environment. Word lists require a great deal of
maintenance. Many spammers succeed in thwarting content filtering by disguising certain key words and by
embedding all text within file types the scanner cannot read. Content filtering is a useful method when used as one
aspect of a total solution.
Heuristic filtering
(Example products/services: SpamAssassin, SpamKiller and ScanMail eManager)
Heuristic filtering takes content filtering to the next level by scanning message subject and contents for patterns. Most
products utilizing heuristic scanning apply rules to each message to determine its degree of compliance with known
spam words/phrases and scores are applied accordingly. A message is then classified according to its total score.
Some applications allow the strength of the heuristics applied to be selected by the user—the stronger the heuristics
the more spam will be blocked—but this also increases the risk of blocking more legitimate messages. In general,
heuristic filtering is more sensitive and effective than content filtering, but it cannot protect against all forms of spam.
Tarpitting
(Example products/services: VisNetic MailScan, Merak E-Mail Server, Alligate)
Tarpitting is an entirely different approach designed to thwart spammers. Instead of inspecting the contents of a
message, tarpitting looks at such factors as the number of recipients or the number of unsuccessful delivery attempts.
If a message has more than a specified number of recipients, for example, a delay is inserted between the delivery
times of the message to each recipient. This delay has the effect of “tarpitting” the spammer, causing them to assume
that the connection has stalled and cease sending. This use of tarpitting is particularly effective against spammers
attempting to use your e-mail server as an open relay. Another example of tarpitting counts unsuccessful attempts to
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deliver a message. When this count exceeds a specified amount, the sender’s IP is blocked for the remainder of the
session.
Blocking
(Example products/services: ESafe, SpamCop, MailProtector)
Similar to content filtering, spam blocking simply prevents messages from being delivered to the intended recipient if
it was sent from a specified e-mail address, domain, server, IP address, or range of addresses. Some products
offering this feature have a predefined list of known spammers that can be updated by download. This is another
simple solution that requires almost daily maintenance because regardless of how many senders are added to the
blocked list, new spammers are constantly spawned and old ones learn to disguise their identity. As with content
filtering, blocking is useful only as an adjunct to other forms of spamicide.
Real-time black hole
(Example products/services: WebShield, AppRiver, IronMail)
Real-time black hole improves on simple blocking by comparing the sender’s domain against a real-time list of known
spammers. Products using this methodology frequently scan and block mail at the gateway thereby preventing spam
from ever reaching the e-mail server. When considering using a product or service that employs a real time black
hole, it’s important to determine what type of list or lists is used. In most cases, the lists are either comprised of
domains or open relays.
Whereas using real-time lists of domains is a very effective method of blocking spam without incurring a high risk of
accidentally blocking legitimate e-mail, using lists of open relays is more problematic. An open relay is a mail server
that is capable of processing messages where neither the sender nor the recipient is a local user. Open relays are
frequently used by spammers to distribute their messages. Not every e-mail administrator is necessarily aware that
their server is an open relay; hence blocking open relays could result in a high number of false positives. As general
awareness and understanding of spam grows, this could become a more viable method of reducing spam.
RFC compliance
(Example products/services: Alligate, ActiveServers, SpamCop)
RFCs or Request for Comments is a set of standards for communication across the Internet. No one is forced to
comply with RFCs, but it’s generally regarded as bad practice not to do so. Some spam services/products offer the
ability to block e-mail originating from a domain or IP address that is not RFC compliant. As with open relay real-time
blackholes, implementing an antispam methodology based on RFC compliance is at high risk for blocking a
considerable number of legitimate messages. Again, as awareness of RFC compliance grows, this method will
increase in usability.
This list of available methodologies is by no means exhaustive. As the volume of spam grows, so too do the options
for its prevention. Whether you decide to employ a service, purchase a software package, implement a free solution
or select an e-mail system with built-in antispam options, it’s vitally important that you fully understand all the
implications of the methodologies employed. At the very least you should seek answers for the following questions for
each solution you consider:

How high is the risk of blocking legitimate mail in this environment?

Can blocked mail be retrieved, and if so, for how long?

Is there an option for informing senders/recipients that a message has been blocked?

How many hours of maintenance are required?

How many different methods does the package employ?

Is it possible to customize the strength of each method, e.g., strong or weak heuristics?
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
What reporting tools are provided?
In the days when the occasional spam message interrupted our day we could afford to treat it as a mild irritation, fixed
in a couple of seconds with a click on the delete button. Those days are long gone; it is now an insult to our
sensibilities and a threat to our productivity; its management demands handling with commensurate importance and
attention.
Regardless of the size of your spam prevention budget, there are certain steps you can take—at the very least—to
reduce the volume of spam without spending a single penny:

Never follow the instructions for removing your address or unsubscribing from a spammer’s mailing list. In
most cases this will not have the desired result; instead it is merely confirming the validity of your e-mail
address.

Forward all spam to spamrecycle@chooseyourmail.com—this site offers a free service informing the
Federal Trade Commission and Web filter developers of spammer’s addresses.

Never enter a company e-mail address in any Web site.

Ensure that your mail servers are not open relays; if you do not know how, http://www.mailabuse.com/an_sec3rdparty.html contains instructions for over sixty e-mail systems.

Utilize any spam prevention tools you may already possess, such as the junk mail filter provided with
Microsoft Outlook.

Do not automatically assign Internet addresses to all users. Even if all employees require internal e-mail,
they do not necessarily need the ability to send/receive Internet mail. Require users to have written approval
from their manager before than can receive an Internet address.

Delete unused addresses from your domain as soon as possible and do not reuse them.
Some useful links:

www.ordb.org: Open relay database allowing testing and look-up of open relays, plus a very useful FAQ
section for learning how to both detect and close open relays

http://www.mail-abuse.com/: A resource for general information and education pertaining to spam
prevention

http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/antispam.html: Educational material for learning how to stop spam

http://songseek.com/spamorg/: Information about reducing spam

http://spam.abuse.net: Comprehensive resource for information on fighting spam

www.spamcon.org: Antispam resources for ISPs

http://www.spamlaws.com/: Listing of laws by country, state and date

http://www.spamrecycle.com/: Submitting your spam to this site will get it forwarded to the Federal Trade
Commission and to the spam filter developers

www.spam.com: Just in case you were looking for the edible variety, here is the official Spam
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Talking Shop: TechRepublic members offer
battle plan for spam
By Dana Norton
IT managers struggle every day in the fight against spam in the enterprise. Forget about telling users to return
spammers' e-mails with the subject “Remove” in the headers. This action will only tell the spammer that your e-mail
address is legitimate and will probably only send more junk mail your way. This and other reasons make it difficult to
fight spam head-on, so IT managers must develop other ways to battle it.
In a recent article, TechRepublic writer Brian Hook outlined several ways IT managers can control spam. This article
highlights some entries in the discussion, which followed Hook's article, on how to fight spam.
A hard-line approach for users
One way to fight spam is to develop an e-mail policy and educate your organization’s users. If users disregard
company policy on spam, S.Chandler believes that a hard-line approach is called for. "...There are two truths about
spam," Chandler said. "You cannot stop it and you cannot successfully educate users on how to fight it. But you can
make users pay for opening attachments containing viruses.
“You can make users, who disobey company policy regarding the opening of e-mail from unknown sources, pay for
part of the damage,” he said. Here’s how he proposes to do it:

Develop a zero tolerance policy toward opening attachments.

Make sure every employee knows about and understands the policy.

If your organization uses Microsoft Outlook, make sure the Inbox preview window is turned off so users will
have less of a chance to open attachments.

Ensure that employees understand they will be fined for any e-mail or network damage incurred from or
through their accounts or workstations.
“If you can't beat it, you can, at least, mitigate the damage,” he said.
Good luck, said TechRepublic member Jill about Chandler’s process. “Considering most viruses deliver their payload
at a later time than when they're installed, your policy would only work if every person in your company had a
dedicated machine that they didn't share with others and that nobody else could have logged in to,” she said.
She is also concerned about imposing such a tough policy on users. This could be a detriment to employee morale,
she said.
“(It’s) better to hire someone to specifically take care of making sure that the systems are clean and stay clean…it
may be expensive to hire another person, but I think if you implement a policy like that one, you'll pay more in terms
of lost production from your existing people,” she said.
Use targeted education campaigns
In response to S. Chandler’s views, Bill Schirf, a senior systems engineer, said that the zero tolerance approach
might be the right idea but may not work. “But even computer-savvy users have a hard time managing spam (and)
viruses. Even with the Outlook preview screen turned off, if you delete one message, Outlook, by default, will
automatically open the next message,” he said.
Schirf offered an approach that’s easy on users and will reduce spam:

Keep spam from reaching your users by stopping spam at the point-of-presence (POP) with server filters.
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
Continually educate users about spam and its dangers.

Offer suggested remedies that users can understand.
Educating users about spam is the number one strategy Ilana Trager uses in her organization. An information
systems manager in Washington state, Trager said that organizations should coach users to manage spam
themselves because spammers can find their way around filters.
She also said that with filters in place, she spends a lot of her time sorting blocked messages for legitimate e-mails.
“The only way I’ve found that seems to work efficiently is to educate the end user,” she said.
She offered a list of don’ts users should heed:

Never reply to spam.

Don’t get suckered by the “Remove” procedures.

If you’re using Outlook, turn off the Out Of Office Auto Reply.

Use the junk filters provided by your e-mail client.

Instruct users on how to forward a spam to the IT team or to the ISP from which the spam originated.
“So far, it's working pretty well. The [users] who have gotten a lot of spam in the past have it under control, and the
rest of us don't seem to be getting much spam at all,” she said.
Look into the law
TechRepublic member Phil Hall suggests that IT managers look into state laws that are on the books designed to
combat spam. "Many states, like Iowa, have antispam laws on the books now (in Iowa's case, it's Iowa code 714E)
that allow recipients to charge the sender $500 per incident; failure to comply allows the recipient to pass it to the
State Attorney General," said Hall, an IT technician for the VGM Group.
"Personally, the 'real-time black hole' list is a joke. We tried that at work and it failed. Also, there simply are too many
companies with their mail gateways misconfigured (like being able to have EACH e-mail server reverse lookup),
which is an RFC standard, but most companies apparently don't know crap."
Hall said the easiest way to deal with spam would be to strengthen antispam legislation. "We need (in the USA) to
have 47 USC 227 altered to specifically cover unsolicited e-mail. Then there would be federal legislation. (As it
stands, 47 USC 227 is unclear and as a result can't be used.)"
Antispam software solutions
Check out this list from CNET of software packages designed to fight spam.
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Get IT Done: Fight spam with e-mail filters
By Kevin Savetz
Spam and e-mail viruses are more than nuisances. They tie up your employees' time and take a bite out of your IT
budget by hogging bandwidth on your LAN and Internet connection. You can fight back against junk e-mail and virus
threats with a well-designed and strategically placed e-mail filter. But a poorly implemented filter can remove
important messages, which could cost you more than a barrage of useless e-mail.
An e-mail filter is software that scans messages for undesirable content, from annoying "make money fast" messages
to hostile viruses. A filter can be installed on your company's LAN or work as an outsourced service. Filters range
from simple to sophisticated; a basic filter scans for spam and viruses, while a more sophisticated filter can search for
other criteria, such as pornography or confidential business information.
Spam filters are good things, but system administrators must implement them with care. If filters are too stringent,
they can stop legitimate e-mail in its tracks; too lax, and spam and viruses will sneak through.
Check out a related white paper
There are financial benefits of stopping spam – increased productivity and reduced costs – and cost considerations
for implementing a filtering solution. Learn how to evaluate the ROI of a spam-filtering solution with the help of this
white paper from Sophos.
Local LAN filtering
Filters generally work using heuristics—a problem-solving method that uses rules of thumb rather than a strict
formula. The process compares messages to lexicons of spam words and checks for attachments that fit the profiles
of viruses. Some advanced tools keep track of whom you regularly communicate with, as well as correspondence
from unfamiliar sources, and employ more stringent filters against strangers' e-mail. The simplest filters scan only
message headers, while more advanced filters scan the message body as well. Other filters use "black hole" lists of
known spammers that are published online and updated as spammers change their tactics and points of attack. The
most popular is the MAPS Realtime Blackhole List.
Large- and medium-size enterprises will want to consider running filtering software within their LANs. This software
can run on the mail host or on a standalone filtering server.
Your mail server may have some built-in filtering capabilities. For instance, Sendmail can disable mail relaying and
includes an access database that allows administrators to reject mail from certain domains. Sendmail can also be set
to refer to the MAPS Realtime Blackhole List. Microsoft Exchange Server can be set to reject relayed mail as well.
These built-in filtering options are a good first line of defense against spam but often are not powerful enough to block
serious spam attempts or e-mail viruses.
Compared to an outsourced filtering service, local filtering has a key advantage: Filtering software can screen
intraoffice e-mail. If an e-mail virus gets into the network, filtering intranet mail will keep the virus from flooding the
local network.
These are some popular filtering software products:
Mirapoint's Message Director is an industrial-strength solution for local filtering. The rack-mount hardware device
connects between your router and mail servers. In addition to spam and virus filtering, the unit can perform outbound
message content filtering, which can be used to ensure that sensitive material is not sent out without proper
authorization. This works with any e-mail server and supports POP3, IMAP, and other common messaging protocols.
Prices for the Message Director start at $26,000.
Junkfilter is free software that works with procmail (a popular mail processing utility) to extract spam. It works at both
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the individual user level and the system level, but the creator discourages its use systemwide for networks with heavy
e-mail loads. Procmail works under standard mail servers running on UNIX and Linux but not Windows NT/2000.
Options for Windows NT/2000 environments include CommandView and Tumbleweed Messaging Management
System.
Outsourced services
It takes IT resources to configure, maintain, and update filters on an internal mail server. If yours is a smaller
business or your IT staff is already tapped, an outsourced filtering service may be a better solution. You won't have to
update filters when new viruses are released or spammers try new tactics.
What CNET Enterprise readers are doing to combat spam
John Stockman: "We have created a spam mailbox for users to forward these messages to. Once a day, we review
these submissions and add entries to our blocking and content filters. We are now blocking nearly 10 percent of all
incoming messages through this automatic filtering system." Jason Rabel, Webmaster, Extreme Overclocking:
"[You] can edit the [Sendmail] Access.conf file to reject domains, e-mail addresses, IPs, and so on. So as spam
comes in, I check the entire header to see if I can find a legitimate origin. If so, I send an e-mail and Cc: the letter to
an admin of the domain...then I add that e-mail/IP/domain to my reject list. I've already killed off many junk domains
that have open relays, and I'm contemplating killing off [other entire domains]." Dave Therault, Field IT Manager:
"The best thing I've found for spam is Brightmail.com. (I use Spaminator, the EarthLink private label of it.) There are
always 100 to 200 spammies sitting in my Spaminator account, and I only receive about one to three spams a day...I
have two of my e-mail addresses forwarded to a Motorola two-way pager, where I pay for service by the character.
So far, I have kept those addresses from getting spammed. When enough people paying a nickel for every hundred
characters start getting spammed, we'll see some laws with teeth in them."
On the downside, sending e-mail to an external filtering service adds a layer that can slow down delivery. Managers
may worry that routing outbound e-mail through another company's server could compromise confidentiality, but
unencrypted e-mail is always prone to being sniffed. Filtering does not significantly increase the possibility of
outbound or inbound messages being intercepted.
Outsourced filtering options include MessageLabs' SkyScan and Postini's Junk Email Assistant.
The cost of these services varies considerably, depending on the features you want (spam filtering, virus filtering, or
both) and the number of e-mailboxes to be scanned. Postini, for instance, charges $1.50 to $2.50 per month per user
for spam and virus scanning. MessageLabs quoted a starting price of $1.50 per user per month.
Whichever option you choose, no filtering tool is perfect. "The moment you automate anything, there is the risk that
you're going to have a little bit of collateral damage," says Satish Ramachandran, CEO of Mirapoint. "Those fishing
nets that are out to catch tuna—invariably they catch some dolphins as well."
With some software, legitimate commercial e-mail and mailing list messages can resemble junk mail. Also, black hole
lists may temporarily block messages from legitimate business partners, so how your filtering tool handles suspected
spam could make all the difference.
Configuring your filter
Most filtering tools offer choices for how to treat potential spam. Suspicious messages can be tagged (using a header
field such as X-SPAM: yes) but delivered normally. The recipient can then use an e-mail client filter to delete the
message or move it to a special folder. Suspect messages can also be moved automatically to a gray list e-mailbox,
where they can be verified by staff. Or messages can be deleted. Simply throwing away messages is the worst
option; if the software is wrong, it could trash vital messages.
"Most people start off cautiously, letting it all through and logging hits to see if the stuff we're tagging really is spam.
Once they are confident, they generally go for the full block," says Alex Shipp, chief antivirus technologist at
MessageLabs.
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A diverse array of mail filtering options exists and, with a little research, any organization can find the one that best
suits its needs, budget, and mail volume. Many large organizations will benefit most by using an in-house mail filter,
though outsourcing may be the answer for organizations with a taxed IT staff. Some enterprises may get the best of
both worlds if their ISP is willing to filter messages on its mail server. This will provide a local filter and distribute the
cost across multiple clients.
No matter which method you eventually choose to fight e-mail spam and viruses, your planning and cautious
implementation will ultimately pay off—for your users and for your bottom line.
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Step-By-Step: Teach end users how to keep
spam out of the inbox
By Kyle Harmon
Let’s face it. Even though no one likes receiving spam (unsolicited commercial e-mail), deleting spam is still a part of
almost any Internet user’s daily routine. Unfortunately, the problem only seems to be getting worse.
What can IT trainers do about spam? Whenever you’re training beginning e-mail users, make sure you cover these
fundamental rules to help your students avoid spam.
Rule #1: Maintain two separate e-mail addresses
You should have one e-mail address that you give out only to close friends and relatives—anyone with whom you
would have personal communication. Then establish another e-mail address with a provider such as Hotmail or some
other online account, and use that address every time you fill out a form on the Web that asks for an e-mail address.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that your private e-mail address won’t get out. If one of your friends or relatives
includes you in a long cc list, someone else in the cc list could disseminate your e-mail address.
Rule #2: Don’t buy from a spam ad
This rule should be a given, but it’s important to underscore this point to new Internet citizens. Spammers will only
continue to spam as long as it is profitable. By teaching your students to refuse to purchase any items that are
advertised in spam, then eventually it will no longer be profitable.
Rule #3. Don’t even respond to it!
Never, ever respond to a spam. Responding to spam, whether to a “remove” address or otherwise will only worsen
the problem. Responding to spam only tells the spammer that your address is a valid e-mail address that accepts
spam. Don’t expect to get removed from any lists that way.
Rule #4. Turn off cookies
Many of you will quarrel with this rule, because legitimate Web businesses (like TechRepublic) use cookie technology
to save customers time and to serve them better. But browser cookies have a dark side. Some unscrupulous
businesses use them to obtain information from you when you visit their Web site.
You and your students can minimize the chances of your e-mail address being broadcast to every Web site you visit
by turning your browser cookies off, or at least making your browser ask for confirmation before accepting cookies.
Rule #5: Report spam to your ISP
Most ISPs have strict anti-spam policies. Your students should report spammers to their ISPs. In many cases, there
is a good chance that the account used by the spammer to get on the Internet will be disabled by the ISP.
As a last resort, you can fight spam with filtering software. Personally, I am not a fan of filtering software. In many
cases, it’s simply too strict and winds up blocking personal e-mails that you really do want to receive. However, when
you’re teaching end users how to use an e-mail client, you should show them how to activate filtering and senderblocking options—just in case they need them.
Support anti-spam legislation
Visit the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email for information on how you can help support anti-spam
legislation. Unfortunately, contrary to what many spam e-mails claim, there is no current legislation in place to control
spam. Do your part and write your congressmen and congresswomen to support anti-spam legislation.
Where to complain
Unfortunately, figuring out how and where to complain about spam can be a difficult task. I recommend SpamCop.
After jumping through a few hoops to register, SpamCop provides a simple interface for reporting spam to ISPs.
SpamCop also provides a service for a few dollars a year that will let you take advantage of their extensive spam-
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filtering software.
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Lock IT Down: Controlling spam and e-mail
content with Nemx
By David Williams
In today’s workplace, many e-mail administrators and their companies are finding it necessary to function with e-mail
content management software in place. At my organization, we recently evaluated a number of these products, and
the one that came out on top was Power Tools from Nemx. Of all the products evaluated, this was the only product
that did everything we needed while offering low overhead in terms of consuming system resources. In this article, I’ll
show you some of the key features of Nemx Power Tools and demonstrate how easy it is to implement.
Features of Nemx Power Tools
Nemx Power Tools can:

Scan message subjects for keywords defined by the administrator.

Scan message body for keywords and sentences.

Scan messages for attachments.

Scan message headers for organizations or individuals that are banned from sending messages into our
domain.

Auto-add disclaimers to messages.
You configure the Power Tools product from within the Exchange Administrator utility. This provides great ease of
use and flexibility, especially in a large company that may have more than one network administrator.
Signature Maker can add predetermined blocks of text (Banners) to the beginning and/or end of all messages
originating from a particular user or group of users. Defaults may be set up on a server basis, with overrides available
on a per recipient basis, including distribution lists. Signatures can be defined with property variables, which are then
replaced with the user's specific properties (Name, phone, etc.). This is ideal for company-wide disclaimer statements
or consistent "look and feel" signatures for users or departments of users.
With Address Manager, you can easily add e-mail addresses to handle the unique requirements of your
organization. Full wildcarding is supported, allowing an unlimited number of addressing rules to guarantee accurate
delivery of otherwise-undeliverable mail. In addition, you can ensure that misdirected mail gets routed to the correct
user based on the intended friendly name.
Spam Blocker stops unsolicited and unwanted mail at the front door of Exchange before it can get to your users,
wasting their time and stealing valuable message storage space. Using a combination of various e-mail header
recognition techniques and RBL database lookup, Spam Blocker is an effective measure in reducing the battle
against junk mail.
Using the Content Filtering module, you can easily define rules to monitor the contents of outgoing and/or incoming
messages for violations in corporate policy, offensive language, or security implications. Once triggered, the message
can be deleted, quarantined, forwarded to another user for review, appropriately categorized, or a number of other
possible actions. Content Filtering can also prevent specific files from entering or leaving your Exchange
organization.
Working with Banners
Banners are set up on the page shown in Figure A. Basically, a Banner is an auto-appended block of text that can be
defined by an administrator. The Banner can be associated with an Exchange container (meaning all users within that
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container get that particular Banner) or associated with the individual mailbox. The administrator sets up the Banner,
and the end user has no configuration capabilities over the Banner.
Figure A
To build a Banner, we first give it a name and a description, as shown in Figure B. It is a good idea to make this
information as descriptive as possible so that you know what the banner contains. You can choose to either build the
banner using Plain Text or Rich text Format.
Figure B
Address Manager
Next, we’ll take a look at the Address Manager module. It can be used to set up auto-forwarding to addresses. For
instance, say you have a person in your company with an often-misspelled name such as Debbie.Zwilling. You could
set up an Address Manager that forwards all messages sent to Debbie.Zwillin, Debbie.Zwiling, and Debbie.Swilling to
Debbie.Zwilling. You can have multiple addressing rules for the same recipient to cover all possible versions of that
person’s name.
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Figure C shows the dialog box for creating new Address Manager rules. The Addressing Rule box will contain the
name that you want it to intercept. In our example above, this would be Debbie.Zwillin@yourdomain.com. Selecting
the Delete Mail option will delete any mail that arrives at your domain from outside that is addressed to
Debbie.Zwillin@yourdomain.com, but if you select the Forward Mail option, you can either enter the name of the
person you want to receive the e-mail (Debbie.Zwilling@yourdomain.com, in our example) or you can click Browse to
search through Exchange’s Global Address List (GAL) and assign it to anyone in your organization. For example, you
may have a utility e-mail address that collects all of these mistaken messages.
Figure C
Spam Manager
The main screen for the Spam Manager module takes you to the Subject Filtering area, Originator Filtering area, and
Header Filtering area. Figure D shows all the Subject Filtering rules that have been set up.
Figure D
In the Add Subject rule dialog box, you can enter the subject you want to filter on, for example ScreenSaver, and then
select the action you want activated when the filter finds an e-mail that contains this subject. The choices are Delete
(the message is automatically deleted) and Quarantine (the message is held in a quarantine, and an e-mail is sent to
all Exchange administrators notifying them).
Once you specify the desired action, select the transfer mode(s) you want covered by this rule. The choices are
Inbound, Outbound, Private (checks Private folders), and Public (checks Public folders). Also, in the Restrictions
dialog box, you can specify whether you want certain members of the GAL to be excluded from this rule.
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In Figure E, you can see the main screen for Originator Filtering. This lists all the filtering rules based on the e-mail
addresses of senders who are known to spam your users.
Figure E
Figure F shows the dialog box for adding Originator Filtering rules. You configure these rules by entering an address
such as *.AOL.Com. (This would filter for all e-mails coming from or going to AOL). Just as with the earlier rules, you
select the transfer modes you want the rules to affect (Inbound, Outbound, Private, or Public) and specify whether
you want to exclude certain members of the GAL.
Figure F
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Content Filtering
Figure G shows the screen for the Content Filtering module, which consists of the Message Text Filter and
Attachment Filter. The Message Text Filter can be used to look for predetermined words and/or phrases within
messages. Once found, the program can then quarantine or delete the message based on how the rule is set.
Figure G
In Figure H, you can see the full list of Attachment Rules that have been set up. As far as I am aware, there is no
limit to the amount of rules you can have.
Figure H
Summing up
This article has provided insight into how useful Nemx Power Tools can be for an Exchange administrator. With all
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the tools the product has in its arsenal, I would highly recommend it to any Exchange admin. As I mentioned above, it
does all of this with very little performance hit, which is extremely important when you have a high message flow
through your Exchange servers.
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Lock IT Down: Preventing spam is the best
approach
By John McCormick
Spam, Spam, eggs, sausage, and Spam. Spam was a popular item on a diner's menu in a Monty Python sketch, but
it's also an excellent description of the daily contents of my e-mail inbox.
Spam defined
Spam definition one: A meat-like substance that tastes good but may clog your arteries. Spam definition two: A
message-like substance from a complete stranger that clogs your e-mail.
So why am I writing about e-mail in a security column? Because e-mail can adversely impact the operation of your
network, either accidentally or intentionally; thus, it’s a security risk.
There's certainly no denying that a flood of e-mail can cause a denial of service attack whether intentional or
accidental. If it hasn't happened to you already, it could. It has happened to businesses I’ve worked with.
Whether you are facing a major spam attack that takes your e-mail server down or an attack that affects just a full
mailbox or two, your users lose messages. To outsiders, your business can appear inept.
There are programs designed to help filter out this mass of unwanted e-mail, but that means extra expense for
installing and maintaining the software. And there is always the possibility that some messages that should get
through will be accidentally blocked.
Prevention is the best medicine
It's better to avoid spam in the first place. There are strategies you can implement to greatly reduce the amount of
spam aimed at your server.
The vast majority of spam comes from automatic scan programs, which watch newsgroups. Most Usenet chat is just
that—chat. However, there are a number of newsgroups where people exchange useful computer-related
information, from troubleshooting tips to discussions of new products. For some companies, newsgroups are also
extremely fertile sources of information about consumer wants and complaints. Participation can also be a solid
stealth-marketing strategy. So, while you might want a policy restricting newsgroup participation from work, it
probably isn't a good idea to ban it entirely.
A growing amount of junk e-mail is acquaintance spam, which is triggered by visits to business sites that capture your
employees' addresses while they legitimately seek product information. You probably already have a policy in place
telling employees they shouldn't surf the Web on company time, but such policies obviously shouldn't stop
authorized, legitimate surfing for product information.
As for unauthorized Web surfing, surveys have shown that company policies don't stop most workers from surfing,
and it's difficult to block unauthorized Web surfing. And because some employees should be tracking newsgroup
messages and perhaps even interacting with others in newsgroups to build company presence, it's important to find a
simple way to battle spam.
Just configure one or more free e-mail accounts at any of the many Web portals offering this service and use them
where appropriate. I find that mail.usa.com is a good choice because of the variety of address options available, such
as server names for each state and each major city as well as the ease of configuring the mailbox to forward
messages.
Forwarding messages is especially important if you expect a flood of e-mail about some special offer or other event,
but you don't want to be bothered with people learning of it six months later and writing upon discovery. You can
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forward the initial surge of messages to any mailbox you desire, even changing the mailbox hourly or daily if
necessary. When the event is over, just check the messages occasionally right at mail.usa.com or close the mailbox.
Once you get another address, set this as your reply address in any company browsers. Now users can surf the Web
with impunity because the spam will go to the dummy mailbox that you can access if desired, or you can simply
ignore it completely.
This is a painless way to eliminate most of the spam you would otherwise have to manage on your own server. But,
there are other aspects of e-mail that directly concern security engineers.
Another reminder
Users tend to forget just how unreliable e-mail can be and how insecure it is. Also, your messages usually go
through, but sometimes they get lost and are often altered. These changes are usually very slight formatting ones,
such as altering tabs to spaces, but this should remind you that no e-mail message containing any confidential data
should be sent in plaintext. Plaintext, of course, is cryptographer-speak for unencrypted.
John McCormick is a consultant and writer (five books, 14,000 plus articles and columns) who has been
working with computers for more than 35 years.
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Get IT Done: Controlling spam relaying on your
e-mail server
By Christopher Tellez
It’s 8:30 A.M. You’ve finished booting up your machine and you’re preparing for the day ahead. Your boss suddenly
storms in with an infuriated look on his face. “Insert Your Name Here, we’ve got a big problem! Someone is e-mailing
pornographic spam from our company. An offended customer e-mailed us with a copy of the spam and is threatening
legal action unless we take care of it IMMEDIATELY! How did this happen? I want the employee responsible found
and brought to my attention!” He throws down a copy of the e-mail on your desk and walks out even more upset than
when he first came in. You look at the header of the e-mail and notice that the originating e-mail address is not
someone at your company but an outside source. Inside the header, you also find your Exchange server listed. You
realize you are the victim of mail relaying.
What is mail relaying?
Mail relaying is essentially when someone taps port 25 on your Exchange Server and uses it to send his or her spam.
Mail relaying not only uses up the resources of your already-busy Exchange Server but also makes it nearly
impossible for those who receive the spam to unsubscribe. On top of that, you appear to be the offending source of
the spam because your mail server name is more prominent than the spammer’s originating e-mail address, which is
hidden deep within the header.
This mail relay ability is available by default on any Exchange Server installation. For some organizations, it’s a useful
function and can help them streamline the performance of their mail servers. But for others, it may be unnecessary,
just offering an open hole for a spammer.
To determine whether you’re open to relaying, follow these steps:
1.
Open the command prompt.
2.
Type telnet YOUR EXCHANGE SERVER 25
Example: telnet exchange 25The Exchange Server should respond with a response similar to this: 220
exchangeservername.yourdomain.com ESMTP Server <Microsoft Exchange Internet
Mail Service 5.5.2650.21> ready
When you type the information below, please note that the text will not appear, so type slowly to ensure accuracy.
1.
Type MAIL FROM: noone@bogusdomain.com
The server should come back with250 OK
1.
Type RCPT TO: mysteryperson@unrealdomain.com
The server’s response should be550 Relaying is prohibited
If it instead shows250 OK – Recipient <mysteryperson@unrealdomain.com>
you are open to relaying.
Keeping out the spam
So, let’s say you’ve determined that you’re susceptible to relaying—how do you turn it off? If you’re running Exchange
5.5 with Service Pack 2, you’re in luck. There are steps to correct the problem. If you’re running an earlier version, it
is time to install or upgrade to 5.5 with SP2. There is no way to close this hole in previous versions.
For those of you with Exchange 5.5/SP2, there is an informative article on Microsoft’s TechNet Exchange site. The
only problem is that the article doesn’t tell you what to do if you want to stop relaying but still allow POP3 e-mail
users. If you follow the instructions to the letter, you’ll find that your POP3 users will no longer be able to send e-mail
externally. It will bounce back to them, even if they’re authenticated.
To avoid the POP3 problem, be sure to select the Hosts And Clients That Successfully Authenticate box in the
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routing restrictions settings. After you change the settings, you’ll be required to stop and restart the Internet Mail
Connector for the changes to take effect. Run the mail relay test again, and you should see the message
550 Relaying is prohibited
Keep in mind that an ingenious spammer can still hack in to learn one of your account names and passwords to relay
messages. In that case, you’ll have to decide, along with the powers that be, whether POP3 is really necessary. If it
is, you’ll need to keep up with all the IP addresses that are allowed to access the server.
Do not get on the list
What can mail relaying do to you besides hijack your server? Well, it can get you blacklisted. There are organizations
out there that are actively trying to stop spammers. They compile lists of spammers, as well as servers that are open
to relaying. The groups offer the lists for download (often for free) by mail system administrators wanting to avoid
spam.
Those who have been blacklisted find themselves unable to send mail to people they were previously able to e-mail.
They may also find that when sending mail to servers that use this service, they receive messages telling them that
any mail from their domain is no longer accepted due to their listing on those services. Once you’re blacklisted, the
only way to get your server off the list is for you to prohibit relaying and then submit to the blacklisting organizations
that you no longer allow it. They will test your server and clear you once you’ve proved that relaying is no longer
available. Your full clearance may take a few days so all subscriber DNS databases have time to refresh the data.
You either stop the relaying or you live with not being able to e-mail some people.
If you’re interested in these services, want to know more about mail relaying, or would like to know where to go to get
unblocked, the following URLs may help. Note that I’m providing them for reference only. Since some of the
practices of these organizations are controversial, please understand that neither I nor TechRepublic endorses or
condemns them.

Network Abuse Clearinghouse

UC Davis Mail Relay Resources

Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS)

MAPS Relay spam Stopper

MAPS Relay Stopping Techniques

MailShield
E-mail relaying is a real problem. It can have a wide range of effects, from a server that is brought to its knees to
blacklisting to lawsuits against your company. Take it seriously and address it like you would any other issue with
Exchange. Hopefully, this information, along with the information you might find on the above Web sites, will
allow you to make an informed decision and implement some effective practices.
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Lock IT Down: Spam zappers you should know
about
By Ed Bott
Want a safe conversation starter for your next dinner party? Skip religion and politics, and don't even think about
asking who really invented the Internet. Instead, ask your guests what they think about unsolicited commercial e-mail,
more commonly known as spam. No controversy here: Everyone hates spam, and you'll undoubtedly unleash a
torrent of spam stories. You can look like a hero when you offer these surefire spam-busting solutions, which come
courtesy of TechRepublic members who responded to my most recent Microsoft Challenge.
The most popular spam-fighting strategy is based on common sense: Set up a throwaway e-mail account, usually
through a free e-mail service like Hotmail, and use it for any untrusted correspondence. TechRepublic member rparz
reports, "Hotmail does a pretty decent job of blocking spam. I've learned to accept it after all these years, so the Bulk
Mail filter is a breath of fresh air."
Unfortunately, that's only a partial solution for me. As a computer advice columnist, my e-mail address is fair game for
both spammers and legitimate readers, and it means that the volume of spam that plops into my inbox increases
every day.
Based on your responses, I've decided that the best way to stop spam is to block it at the server, before it can reach
users. If you're using Exchange Server, you could do what TechRepublic member TomF12 does: "We deal with
spam the same way we deal with unwanted viruses...by scanning and quarantining them before they hit our
Exchange servers. We use Tumbleweed Communications' Tumbleweed Messaging Management System. Its secure
mail server allows us to scan all incoming mail for viruses (and unwanted content, if need be) as well as to set up
rules to block specific senders or domains."
TechRepublic member jsg recommends Mail Essentials from GFI: "I've been using this third-party utility to block
spam from reaching our mail server for the last six months. It has reduced spam almost to zero."
However, you don't have to install yet another piece of server software to stop spam. TechRepublic member steveo
gladly outsourced this messy task: "I manage a mail server of about 60 users. We use MailWatch [from Mail.com] to
screen and filter all of our incoming mail. Besides scanning for viruses and malicious code, it checks for keywords
typical of spam and gives each one a point value. Based on the number of points, I specify whether I want the mail
logged, quarantined, or deleted. I originally went with the service as a stopgap measure. After using it, I decided the
minimal cost is less than I would spend trying to stay ahead of the spammers."
For POP3 and other accounts where you don't control server settings, take charge by mastering the filtering features
in your e-mail software. TechRepublic member mark_weinstock, for example, uses the Rules Wizard in Outlook
2000, filtering in Outlook Express, and similar solutions in two non-Microsoft e-mail clients, Poco and Eudora. "I use
different addresses for different types of mail, and each goes into its own folder, where filters delete obvious spam.
By using multiple accounts, I can set different strengths of filters on each account. For example, my personal account
is very tightly controlled. But I'm more willing to let unknown people e-mail me in my other accounts. That way, I can
address the stuff that's important to me and put off the other accounts until I have some free time."
The most tempting option of all, however, is to use a third-party utility that blocks and tackles spam before it arrives at
your client. I haven't tested any of the following products, but I'm interested in learning more after reading these
capsule reviews:
TechRepublic member Tomaste raves about two free spam-filtering services: “Brightmail acts as a proxy between
you and your POP account. It maintains a large filtering service that weeds out almost all of my annoying spam, and I
can receive a weekly digest of all the spam they have filtered. As a second line of defense, I use a service called
Despammed. You get a free forwarding e-mail address you can use in places that are at high risk for spam, such as
newsgroups." I've heard nothing but good reports about Brightmail; note, however, that it works only with standard
POP accounts and is incompatible with MSN and AOL.
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If you'd rather not redirect your mail through another server, TechRepublic member mecusar suggests Novasoft's
SpamKiller 2. "It uses less resources than leaving Microsoft Outlook open and checks my mail every minute. It also
automatically gets updates for the filters, and you can use a wizard to add your own." A 30-day free trial is available;
to continue using the software, you pay a registration fee of $30. It doesn't work with AOL or Web-based e-mail.
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Related TechRepublic resources:
How do I…? Reduce spam
Related resources
More TechRepublic articles and downloads:
SuperScout Email Filter Free Trial Download
Get IT Done: Fight spam with e-mail filters
Choose the best vendor for spam filtering software
TechRepublic books and CDs:
IT Professional's Guide to E-mail Administration
E-mail Security Policy
Quick Guide: Exchange 2003 Migration
TechProGuild Articles:
Repair and restore Outlook data
Talking Shop: Launch MTACheck.exe to recover an MTA database in Exchange
Build Your Skills: Archive Hotmail messages in Outlook Express
How do I…?
Writing an effective e-mail policy
Managing e-mail storage and archiving
Recover deleted e-mail
Setting up secure Outlook Web Access
Fixing an overworked e-mail server
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TechRepublic:
The collective voice of IT professionals
About TechRepublic
TechRepublic communities engage IT professionals in the ultimate peer-to-peer experience, providing
actionable information, tools, and services to help members get their jobs done. TechRepublic serves the
needs of the professionals representing all segments of the IT industry, offering information and tools for
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TechRepublic site features
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and templates, checklists, tools, executables, Gartner product analyses, and white papers.
TechRepublic's books and CDs: Find the latest books and CDs about today's critical IT topics, including
PC troubleshooting, VPN, TCP/IP, Windows client and server issues, and Cisco administration.
Discussion center: Open a discussion thread on any article or column or jump into pre-selected topics:
career, technology, management, and miscellaneous. The fully searchable Discussion Center brings you
the hottest discussions and threads and allows you to sort them by topic. Our online IT community
provides real-world solutions and the latest articles, resources, and discussions affecting frontline IT pros.
Get access to more than 250 full-text IT books, along with exclusive downloads and in-depth articles on
network and system administration, PC troubleshooting, help desk and support issues, and more.
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