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It is a SPAM

It is a SPAM

I think this is a similar topic we have discussed not long ago. Let me refresh your memory on this about spam email.

What is your definition of a spam email that you have received? Right, most said unwanted email. Wait a minute, how do system knows you want or don’t want the email? Here’s the problem, an email server or an antispam does not know you want that email to be detected as spam.

So, the understanding of an end-user and the definition set in the server are not the same. Well, we try to minimize this false-positive but this is happening.

The less sophisticated antispam uses RBL. RBL is known as a realtime blackhole list, this is the most basic and common way to fight spam. The type of techniques is based on the source of that email. If the RBL has blacklisted the source base on IP address. Somehow it has worked but it isn’t perfect until if someone’s account is compromised and it was used to send spam.

Then with SPF & DKIM, to tell others I only send out my organization’s email on these email servers and signed my outgoing emails as shown in my domain’s DNS. The trouble is others in the organization were not informed if they were sent from anywhere or the server’s IP address is not stated` in the SPF. In this type of scenario, emails were genuine can be rejected or quarantined.

Servers with antispam mechanism, no matter how sophisticated they are, it boiled down to compliance. Servers don’t read your thought, they are set up with preset rules to determine an incoming email is spam or not.

So if you are sending emails from an email server that has not been defined in the DNS or an outgoing email was signed but it was not matched the key published in the DNS. Even that you are representing the organization. your email will be rejected.

More intelligent email antispam read incoming emails if the content or words look spammy, they can be rejected too. These are a few techniques are used in antispam.

I want to mention this to all email server’s administrator, please send a returned message if you reject the senders’ email. I have seen email was rejected and dropped quietly, made tracing difficult.

 

 

Coronavirus, work from home?

Coronavirus, work from home?

The official name for the virus is COVID-19, commonly known as ‘coronavirus’ that have been infected many around the world. Fortunately, the virus is not as deadly as SARS but very infectious. Many businesses are affected.

To reduce human to human contact, companies are reducing the number of staff in their offices or even ask their staff to work from home. countries are imposing quarantine orders to travelers trave to China and some affected countries.

Luckily, the internet is well established nowadays, working from home is possible. The question is how are you able to stay productive working from home? If you want to collect information, files, or even chats for your organization, what is available to you?

Do you know SmarterMail can do all these? SmarterMail is not only about emails but you can share contacts, calendars, tasks, and notes. Group Chat, for internal, one-one-one text, audio and video chat. Create Team Workspaces for internal or external team text, audio and video chat.

If you have SmarterMail already your team can start using it and stay effective, even working from home. Otherwise, you can consider our Premium Email hosting which is powered by SmarterMail has the exact function you see at the SmarterMail website.

Improve anti-virus and anti-spam in Plesk & cPanel

Improve anti-virus and anti-spam in Plesk & cPanel

Recently, we have noticed an increase in unwanted emails attached to infected documents. These are things you can do on your Plesk and cPanel control panels

But I still reinstate that local protection on your computers and devices like smartphones are extremely important. Most malware remains inactive until users intervention. Thus, these protections are your last defense.

For Plesk, I suggest you buy the extension known as Premium anti-virus.  After you have obtained the addon license you need to install through your ‘updates & upgrades’. The add-on license is not too expensive and it is worthy especially you are in business and many mailboxes.

For cPanel, installing ClamAV is a must. However, if you are running a VPS with a Gb memory or below, you might want to think twice as ClamAV uses resources especially during updates ad you have plenty of emails.

You can enhance the ClamAV by using 3rd party rules, but again you will need memory. The next solution you might want to consider is the MailScanner from Configserver. I recommend the Front-End costs USD 55, one-tine fee for its license. Useful and it makes your jobs so much easier.

DKIM exempted you as Spammer?

DKIM exempted you as Spammer?

A while ago someone came to me, asked if I can add DKIM so his company is not identified as a spammer. In a way, yes but in another way is a no. Why do I say so?

DKIM is easy to advertise in the zone records nowadays. Many popular control panels have such ability to publish whether your DNS is hosted on the same server or just copy them into your DNS hosted elsewhere. Whichever the case, DKIM allows you to sign an outgoing email is to match with the public key you have advertised in the public DNS, to tell others it is sent by real me.

DKIM is one of the best methods to identify email is spoofed, impersonating a person in the organization. Here’s the catch, only the authorized mail server signed that email. If you are using another email server signed with different keys, it will cause a failure if DKIM of your recipient mail server is validating DKIM.

2 things, if your recipient mail server is not checking on DKIM or no action is taken. The real sender email account has been compromised. For these cases, how can DKIM protect your organization?

Have you heard about Mailspring?

Have you heard about Mailspring?

Malspring was formerly known as Nylas Mail, ok, I like the name ‘Mailspring’ better. Sound alien to you? Most I have spoken like if you are dealing email, you use Outlook. Apparently, there are many other mail applications, like Thunderbird is one of the popular too.

But why I want to mention Mailspring today? Read on to know why. If you have a big inbox and you are reading a lot of emails every day, you want something fast, does not hang when they are syncing with the mail server while downloading right?

Apparently, Mailspring is the fastest email application I have tried. Every click on Mailspring is instant. The RAM usage is so much lower. I don’t do fancy stuff on my emails so I can stick to the free version.  They have a PRO version, it is a monthly subscription type you can check the detail on their website https://getmailspring.com/pro.

However, there is one major problem for me otherwise it is perfect.  Mailspring does not have a ready-made addon like Thunderbird. I use the sort and alert plugins, they are important to me. Never know if I will need others but Thunderbird will give me that option.

ConfigServer MailScanner Front-End

ConfigServer MailScanner Front-End

Today, I want to mention a product or rather an installation for cPanel users is the ConfigServer MailScanner Front-End. Do not mix up with the Configserver MailScanner, even they are the same in the backend, MailScanner’s front end made your life easier and made anti-spam effectively. I recommend to cPanel users if they are looking for a cost-effective antispam solution.

MAILSCANNERMost anti-spam is not integrated. They use MX to help you filter spam emails. If it is injected to the mail server, it is local delivery though LMTP, this kind of solution is not effective. However, the integrated means you need resources, and there is on overhead especially to those have a high volume of email traffic.

MAILSCANNERIf anti-spam is your top priority, Configserver MailScanner with the Front End is worth considering. With my past experience, you are safe to quarantine emails with a score as low as 2. In addition, the front end gives you the ability on how you want to keep the quarantined emails.

Anti-spam is not 100%, users unwanted email considered to a user as spam might not be the case for antispam. Antispam a few rules and gives a score of each rule to add them up should the email’s score is more than the threshold. There are cases, spam or unwanted emails have slipped through your anti-spam, MailScanner Front End allows you to click on the button to learn, to learn and port as spam, or blacklist sender and its domain.

Configserver charges USD 55 onetime fee for MailScanner front end, I personally think it is affordable and cPanel users should install if they want effective antispam.

SPF, DKIM & DMARC

SPF, DKIM & DMARC

A few years back, I still telling many to use SPF to prevent outgoing email domain spoofing. For today, it is more than SPK record, DKIM & DMARC have become a must to prevent email domain spoofing and enhance your email delivery.

However, many still do not have these in their DNS records or just SPF. I personally think this is the moment to have all these 3 if you have not published them for your domain.

There are just too many spam, scam and phishing emails out there. Many email server administrators have tightened their email security, while this filtering rule is tighter, missing records on your domain DNS can be caused delivery failure if they are verifying, also receiving more spam emails.

Thus, it is important to implement all these three items. Modern control panels like cPanel or Plesk is just a few clicks away to seitch on SPF and DKIM. For DMARC, just Google and it is not difficult to have one too.

Cheap anti-spam?

Cheap anti-spam?

Many have the impression that cheap things aren’t good. Yes but not exactly for all. For example, our cheap web hosting plans come with a good anti-spam filtering solution.

The anti-spam solution is as effective as you can find in the market available commercially in hundreds a month. Seriously speaking, many web hosting users are getting a lot of emails. Because they are paying little, so they might have an impression, anti-spam filtering is an addon and you have to pay more for anti-spam。

This is in the past, you are paying for anti-spam. Vastspace‘s web hosting is an exception, we feel that this is essential and it should be part of the web hosting. We have included anti-spam filtering. This is not the ordinary DNSBL anti-spam blackhole you find in most control panels.

anti-spam rulesWe use complicated anti-filtering with more than 10 rules to determine should the email classified as SPAM. We will quarantine SPAM emails in case you have decided to read it or it is a false positive. The anti-spam filtering is too effective with newsletters, with success rate up to 90%, they are quarantined if you choose to accept them in the future.

If nex time someone said to you that you have to pay for anti-spam. Try our web hosting, you will notice the difference.

Anti-Spam for everyone

Anti-Spam for everyone

On 1st Aug, we will launch an affordable anti-spam solution. Many have subscribed to a web hosting service, but their users have received many spam emails, using the DNSBL for anti-spam. On the market, anti-spam solutions are not cheap and most are per mailbox charge.

Per mailbox does make sense, it creates load on an anti-spam device if you have a lot of emails to filter. However, this is expensive for a small business. We understand the shortcoming. We launched 2 affordable anti-spam solutions to reduce unwanted emails. No more complicated billing and the price of a cheap hamburger.

just S$5 a month(30 mailboxes & below), you have a shared anti-spam solution to reduce unwanted emails effectively or a dedicated anti-spam gateways cluster if you are expecting a lot of emails and you have many mailboxes each month.

We are giving a 14-day trial, so you can experience how effective is the anti-spam. Speak to us, for details.

How Domain works for hosting?

How Domain works for hosting?

How Domain works for hosting?

There 3 things for a domain to work with a web hosting. Many do not know the existence of DNS. DNS is actually important. It works as a directory to tell your visitor to go to the website or deliver your emails. Without DNS, your domain and web hosting will not work even they are valid or running.

Website hosting and email server are recognised and talked to each other using the IP address. An address numbers, e it an IPv6 or IPv4. Numbers are difficult to remember and it is not practical in the past using IPv4, thus there is such thing known as a virtual host, so many domains can use the same IP address.

This is where and how the DNS works. It helps to translate a name to numbers Like what I have said, DNS direct traffic for email or website. Without DNS, the name cannot be translated or resolved, everything will stop working on the internet.

Domain names registered with the registrars require 2 or more DNS. I personally prefer they are from different networks and GEO locations. So, if one DNS is down, the others are not affected should its network is having troubles. If you have 4 DNS but they are set up on the same network. It will defeat the purpose of having 2 or more DNS.

This article tells you DNS is relatively important but usually neglected. Hope it helps.