Spamhaus subject in spam messages

Spamhaus, the organisation that fights spam with DNSBL technology, is mentioned in a spam message. This is one of the strategies that spammers use to place this anti spam organisation in a bad daylight.

WORKING TO PROTECT INTERNET NETWORKS WORLDWIDE
Spamhaus tracks the Internet’s Spammers, Spam Gangs and Spam Services, provides dependable realtime anti-spam protection for Internet networks, and works with Law Enforcement to identify and pursue spammers worldwide.

The SBL database is maintained by a dedicated international Spamhaus team based in 9 countries, working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to list new confirmed spam issues and – just as importantly – to delist resolved issues.

The Spamhaus Exploits Block List (XBL) is a realtime database of IP addresses of illegal 3rd party exploits, including open proxies (HTTP, socks, AnalogX, wingate, etc), worms/viruses with built-in spam engines, and other types of trojan-horse exploits.

The Exploits Block List can be used by all modern mail servers, by setting your mail server’s anti-spam DNSBL feature (sometimes called “Blacklist DNS Servers” or “RBL servers”) to query xbl.spamhaus.org. Use of the XBL is free for users with normal mail servers (but networks with high email traffic should see DataFeed).

You can get MUCH MORE if you contact us:

The Spamhaus Project Ltd. 18 Avenue Louis Casai, CH-1Geneva, Switzerland, Tel +41225330399

News clients sign for MX Lab managed email security services

New clients have teamed up with MX Lab to secure their email communication: LG&F Group, Interlink Group and Koraton nv – Rector Benelux after making use of the 15 day trial. Vlassenroot upgraded their subscription.

LG&F Group used a in house solution based on SpamAssassin but was looking for a solid solution to protect the 120 users over 4 domains they have in use. After a 15 day trial MX Lab was choosen to secure the email communications.

Interlink Group, a leader in residential and commercial development, project management and construction, and real estate brokerage, based in Puerto Rico, where using ClamAV for anti virus and SpamAssassin/Amavisd-new for anti spam. The 15 day trial is only half way when MX Lab receives the order for a subscription.

Koraton nv – Rector Benelux, daughter company of the Rector Group, manufacturer of prestressed and reinforced concrete floor elements, has choosen for MX Lab to replace the in house installed SurfControl solution after a subscription period and negative end evaluation.

Vlassenroot, manufacturer of boom sections for telescopic cranes and whose core activities are laser-cutting, shearing and bending of all kind of steel, including high-strength steel, stainless steel and aluminium, have updated their subscription at MX Lab to protect 3 other domains that are in use by the company

MX Lab detects PDF based spam

“Talktech Telemedia expects gains of 300% in next 5 trading sessions!”. MX Lab has intercepted the first stock spam messages that don’t have content or images attached to the email but instead a full PDF of the German Stock Insider. Read the full article.

Say hello to iPhone

A few more hours and the iPhone will be available in the US, can’t wait untill it gets to Europe.

Safari passes 1 million download in 48 hours….

… is Safari so popular among Mac users or are Windows users so curious about Safari? Time will tell when the finished version will ship. Apple has provided an update for Safari Beta early after the release to patch some bugs.

.hk domain popular for hosting sites from spammers

MX Lab noticed an increase of the usage of .hk domain in spams for software, online drug stores, replica watches,… during the last few weeks. Our intent analysis technology is intercepting a vast amount of .hk domains, about a 60% of all URLs.

One other thing that MX Lab could detect was the usage of images in the background of the image based spam. Normally, image based spam contains an integrated image in the body of the HTML part of the email. The image itself now is integrated in the HTML body tag as a background. So far, this seemed to be a one time action but it is obvious that spammers are trying to avoid detection of their images in the spam emails.

Apple announces…

Safari comes to Windows

Safari 3, Public Beta introduced at the World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco, will not only be available for MacOS X based computers but also for Windows based computers. Safari 3 public beta is available today as a free download. The full release will be included in the new Mac OS® X version 10.5 Leopard and will be available as a free download to Mac OS X Tiger and Windows users in October. Read more.

Near Final Mac OS X Leopard

Scheduled to ship in October, Leopard introduces over 300 new features. Read more.

New Mac OS X Server Leopard Features

“Leopard Server’s core services, including Apache 2, MySQL 5, Postfix, Cyrus, Podcast Producer and QuickTime Streaming Server are 64-bit, allowing users to take full advantage of their 64-bit hardware’s performance and processing power and work with larger data sets. Since Leopard Server is fully 32-bit compatible, users can run 32-bit and 64-bit applications natively side-by-side. Leopard Server is also optimized to take full advantage of Intel’s latest multi-core processors.” Read more.

Apple’s new web site design

What is not announced in a press release is the Apple’s new web site design. The ‘not so modern tabs and out dated’ are finally gone and replaced by a very clean and easy navigation. When you go to the tab Mac you are presented with all the Apple products inside a scrolling screen. Very cool and gives you a very good overview. I really love it.

Evanescence concert @ Lotto Arena, Belgium, 3 June 2007

The concert of Evanescence, held in the Lotto Arena, Antwerp, Belgium, on the 3rd of June 2007, was in one word…. amazing. Evanescence performed very well and the audience really loved the concert. Amy forget her text in one song at the start but besides this small lack the concert was technically perfect.

The concert was a mix of the new songs from the latest album The Open Door, like Call me when you’re sober, Sweet Sacrifice, Lacrymosa and previous hit songs like Bring me to life and Going under. A huge Baldwin piano was rolled on the stage for Amy for the songs Lithium and My Immortal, one of the top moments for me of this concert, where the audience was singing along. The mood of the audience made the whole concert so good. While the group was backstage for a small break the “noise” that the audience created was overwhelming and at some point we all should suffered some permanent ear damage.

The band performed in their recent line up change with new members Will Hunt (drums) and Troy McLawhorn (guitar), both Dark New Day members. Hunt and McLawhorn are on tour with Evanescence until at least September 2007 to finish the Family Values tour although it is unknown if they will remain with the band beyond that time.

Some video clips can be found on YouTube. Visit the official site of Evanescence.

At last

The move to our new house is finished. That is, all my personal belongings have been moved but we still need some time to settle. The office is finally ready for use and I can start working again in normal conditions. Postings to this blog will be resumed and more often.

Top spammer Robert Alan Soloway arrested

Robert Alan Soloway is arrested Wednesday on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Soloway has sent millions of junk e-mails since 2003.

He continued even after Microsoft won a $7 million judgment in 2005. A small Internet service provider in Oklahoma won a $10 million judgment. Soloway was on the top 10 list of spammers kept by The Spamhaus Project, an international anti-spam organization.

Soloway sent out unsolicited bulk e-mails using networks of compromised computers called “zombies.” His spams where most of the time promotions for his own email broadcasting activities.

While the arrest is important it will not create a substantial difference in the volume of spam on the internet. Even if Robert Alan Soloway is ultimately convicted and his operations shuttered, dozens are in line to fill the void.