| Author |
Message |
    
redY67
Citizen
Username: Redy67
Post Number: 1905
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 20, 2005 - 10:03 am: |     |
We are getting a ton of spam email at work, about 50 per hour. Our IT person can't seem to stop it. Any suggestions? |
stefano
Citizen
Username: Stefano
Post Number: 438
Registered: 2-2002
| | Posted on Friday, May 20, 2005 - 10:07 am: | |
Plane tickets |
redY67
Citizen
Username: Redy67
Post Number: 1908
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 20, 2005 - 10:08 am: | |
Sorry, don't know why Plane Tickets came up in the subject line. It was supposed to be Spam Email |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 6929
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 20, 2005 - 10:14 am: | |
Contact the ISP.
Where is the email server, with the ISP or on your company's premises?
Do you know if you have spam protection software on the email server? |
Oliver
Citizen
Username: Oly
Post Number: 3
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Friday, May 20, 2005 - 10:20 am: | |
If you have your own mailserver that your IT person administers, you can install a filter in the server itself. One very popular filter also happens to be free, it is called SpamAssassin. The website is http://spamassassin.apache.org/
If your ISP handles your mail, and you only download it into local email programs, you probably want to use one with built-in spam detection. For example, Thunderbird allows you to mark messages as spam and unmark false positives. When you are happy with it, you can direct spam into a special folder for occasional review, or autodelete. Thunderbird is at http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/ but isn't the only program that can do this.
Probably not helpful for business email, but for home use I have been using google's gmail webmail and I find it very good at filtering out spam for me.
Hope this helps,
Oliver
|
redY67
Citizen
Username: Redy67
Post Number: 1912
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 20, 2005 - 10:30 am: | |
Thanks, the email is the company email, our IT guy doesn't seem like the brightest bulb on the tree, so I wanted to see if there was something I could personally do before I throw my computer out!! |
bets
Supporter
Username: Bets
Post Number: 1536
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, May 21, 2005 - 12:41 am: | |
Someone's computer connected to the network has been hacked and is hijacking your connection. Same thing happened to us Sunday night. Ask if there's a packetshaper or some such device that can trace it back to its origin, then shut down the port. There's a way to scan remote machines for the virus/worm, but the technique escapes me for now. But everyone should scan immediately using all tools available to ensure the behavior doesn't just shift to another machine. Not my area, but this is the solution from what I understand. |
kevin
Citizen
Username: Eloso
Post Number: 31
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, May 21, 2005 - 8:34 am: | |
Have you mentioned this to your IT guy? I'm sure all of us have helpful advice, but we could be giving you advice that is incongruent with with your IT infrastructure. If he isn't able to block spam at the server perhaps he can so you how to use the spam filtering that is probably already in you email client. |
woodstock
Supporter
Username: Woodstock
Post Number: 996
Registered: 9-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, May 21, 2005 - 10:52 pm: | |
(all of the below assumes that your mail server is in-house. If it's hosted mail, all bets are off)
If your IT person can't figure this out, they shouldn't be in charge of your mail server. There are TONS of tools out there to handle this kind of thing. And unless it's a Joe Job, stopping spam like this should be straightforward.
The first thing to find out is where the spam is coming from. Is it coming from inside your network, or outside? Is it coming from a particular IP address or subnet, or from all over?
What kind of spam is it? Not what are they selling, but are you actually getting direct emails, or the bounces from failed Joe Jobs?
There are many tools to handle this kind of thing at the server level if you can't do it (or don't want to do it) at the client level.
-Baysian filters (learn what spam is)
-Blocklists or black holes (most mail servers can check thse lists)
-Direct IP blocking (if you can figure out the IPs that are spamming you, they can be blocked either at the firewall, or by the mail server)
If you're still having this problem on Monday, let us know. |
redY67
Citizen
Username: Redy67
Post Number: 1972
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - 11:41 am: | |
Woodstock you took the words right out of my mouth!!! Our IT person shouldn't be in charge, can't figure it out. That is why I was posting here for help! |
TomD
Citizen
Username: Tomd
Post Number: 6
Registered: 5-2005
| | Posted on Friday, June 3, 2005 - 11:38 am: | |
Folks here are correct. Ideally, the spam filtering would be set at the mail server, but if that isn't (and won't) be happening you can still get a lot of the spam out of your mailbox.
There are a whole bunch of free and $$ tools out there that do this. None are perfect, but they will all remove at least a good chunk of the spam. Here's a list:
http://email.about.com/cs/winspamreviews/tp/free_spam.htm
I don't have personal experience with any of these, I used MailWasher in the past it worked very well but gmail and yahoo have improved their server-based spam filtering enough that I no longer use it.
What (if anything) you choose will probably depend on whether you are getting mail via POP3 or an MS Exchange server and what you are using as a mail client (web mail, Outlook, Thunderbird?).
Anyway, even if the lord of IT at your company can't help you, you can still protect your mailbox. |
Soda
Supporter
Username: Soda
Post Number: 3344
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, June 3, 2005 - 1:40 pm: | |
"Plane Tickets" anagram: "Span Enale" |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 7257
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 3, 2005 - 2:54 pm: | |
2 skeptical net/ten
3 neckties plat
4 catlike spent
5 kettles panic
6 kittens place
8 kneecap stilt/tilts
9 necktie splat
10 packets inlet
12 pinkest cleat/eclat
13 skittle pecan
14 slacken petit
15 speckle taint
19 sticken leapt/petal/plate/pleat
21 stickle/tickles paten
22 tackles inept
26 tickets nepal/panel/penal/plane
27 catkin pestle
28 kettle panics
29 kitten places
34 packet enlist/inlets/listen/silent/tinsel
35 sickle patent
36 tackle instep
38 ticket panels/planes
39 tinkle aspect
40 clink septate
41 knelt aseptic
43 nicks/snick palette
44 packs entitle
45 pack entitles
46 skip tentacle
|
Soda
Supporter
Username: Soda
Post Number: 3347
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, June 3, 2005 - 8:31 pm: | |
Gee, Tom. You're so suggestable.
-s.
BTW: Pull my finger. |
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