Spam: how does your org handle it?

[Boscoh]

After enough complaining by me and the users, the higher up's finally decided to do something about the SPAM problem. We implemented Spamhaus and Spamcop black lists and are doing reverse dns verification on IP's to make sure the IP has an MX or an A record, querying the server sending the mail to see if the user account the said mail is coming from actually exists on the server, and are also verifying that the domain name in the HELLO's actually exists. We're using IpSwitch IMAIL. I implemented it today around 11am and it's caught over 100 spam messages, and no false positives.

IMAIL sucks, but I'm impressed with the spam filtering. We've got an anti-spam solution from Trend Micro sitting in a box (going on 6 months now...), but it's being put off until our Microsoft guy gets Exchange up and running.

 

[groovin]

resurrecting this topic...

skyking, regarding dnsbls, what criterias are used in placing a address on a blacklist? open relay? known abuse?

thanks

 

[scorpioLP]

I think each blacklist has it's own set of criteria. They're not always the same.

 

[InlineFive]

My ISP uses Brightmail and in a year of service I have only seen about three emails that are SPAM. I'm impressed.

 

[billbixbysmonkey]

For those of you who set up your own spamassassin boxes, where can I find a good how to on setting one up?

The ones I have found are not complete or don't work.

 

[skyking]

it depends on what OS and what mail handler you will use. Unix/linux or windows? Are you going with sendmail, exim?

 

[billbixbysmonkey]

Currently using Qmail on Red Hat 7.3 but can change to something else.

 

[Mr N8]

Originally posted by: azkiwi
My ISP switched from Postini (which I really liked) to Barracuda and it is currently about 95% effective (Bayesian). The good thing about it is I get virtually zero false positives.

I think the only spam getting through right now are a few low mortgage spams, and very few of them.

Yeah, we just dumped Surf Control and switched to Barracuda. Its great. I've gained another hour and a half a day, because I don't have to worry about all the false positives. Its also a box of its own, so no server resources are used for it, and it only cost ~$2400 for 3 years.