High Cost Effects of Spam on Businesses
What is Spam?
Spam can be generalized and defined as unsolicited emailing that’s usually sent out to several email addresses in bulk. Spam emailers have created their own “gated” community within the Internet; they’ve separated themselves from all politics and rules pertaining to the Internet and have constructed their own methods. This is being produced by all sorts of individuals and organizations in order to reach a wide set of audience, as they use this method to send endless amounts of emails and advertisements that flood your mailboxes on a daily basis.
Effects on Businesses
It isn’t a secret that many businesses heavily rely on the Internet, thus allowing them to grow and expand as time progresses. However if a business’s backbone is the Internet then in return bandwidth is the Internets back bone and support as well. When a message is sent to a network this action takes up bandwidth. Depending on the size of the message and the quantity depends on the amount of bandwidth utilized. A larger than usual message or mass quantities of messages will normally take up a great deal of bandwidth, which consequently will slow down a business’s network and Internet.
There have been studies that suspect spam for accounting as much as 50% of some businesses networks, this means that these businesses are only using about 50% of their resources, thus in return possibly hindering their growth and increasing unnecessary expenditure. It is a mission at times to reduce or even eliminate spam, however obtaining the right spam filter is the solution. Spam filters rely on a set of rules, regulations and if I may say so “politics” in order to catch and filter out the impractical emails. Determining your businesses needs and assessing the budget is one of the first steps in order to gain control of the unwanted emails. Read more »
What is DoS Denial of Service attack?
A denial of service (DoS) attack is an attempt to deny a user from accessing the available computer resources and services. It can be targeted towards a single system or a group of systems. In the event that a great number of systems are attacked, it’s called a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS).
Whereas the motives and means of carrying out the attacks are varied, the primary goal is to deny legitimate users from accessing information, resources and services.
A denial of service attack is typically carried out by an individual or group of individuals who deliberately prevent a computer system from functioning properly using various means. They usually target Internet Sites or services being hosted on reputable web servers. Common sites and services prone to attack are banks; DNS root name servers and online payment gateways.
Perpetrators of DoS attacks use various means and methods to carry out their acts. There are typically two means of attack, the wired and wireless means. Wired means of attacks are usually carried out on wired networks whereas the wireless means of attack is carried on wireless networks.
RBL Vs White List
RBL
RBL is an abbreviation for “Real-time Black List”. An RBL is a list of ‘known’ SMTP servers notorious for sending SPAM. The List is regularly updated with new potentially harmful entities. These entities might be a list of domain names, IP addresses and viruses that are known to cause or associated with potentially harmful activities. When the user receives a message, the email server can look at the IP address of the originating SMTP server, and search for it in a black list. If the IP address is found in the black list, traffic from that particular IP address it’s automatically blocked.
In the past, blacklist solutions come in the form of software. Traditionally, there existed only two major forms of software that used Real Time Black Lists: antivirus and anti-spyware software. However, new advanced blacklist solutions which use heuristics like the DNSBL (DNS Black List) have come up.
There are many advantages associated with using Real Black Lists; one major advantage of RBLs is that they don’t entail any major work from the user. You don’t need to have specialty training. Other advantages include; automatic update of the blacklist, total security against known threats, no need for definition file updates. It also acts as an extra layer of protection because it does not rely entirely on definition files.
However, there are some drawbacks associated with using Real Time Black Lists. Your network is left under the control of a third party vendor and constantly updating the list might consume a good chunk of the available bandwidth. A large email from a good source might be mistakenly deleted or blocked. The scanning of all incoming and outgoing IP traffic might slow down the system. Works stations and networks might be vulnerable to day-zero attacks.
White list
A white list is a list of accepted e-mail addresses or domain names/IP addresses that the user deems are acceptable to receive email from and should not be deleted. The most popular list is the e-mail white list. E-mail white lists contain a list of of e-mail addresses or domain names from which e-mail blocking software will allow traffic to be received. The white list is an option for those who don’t like using Real Time Black Lists.
There are many advantages associated with using a white list.The system performs faster because there is no constant scanning of outgoing or incoming traffic. You don’t need to install unlicensed software. No executable programs like spyware or Trojan horses will ever get installed on your system. There is also no need for virus or spyware definition updates; therefore, systems are constantly protected from day-zero virus attacks.
One drawback of using a white list is that you might miss an important message from a credible source that you have not included in the white list.
Bayesian Spam filters
The contents of emails that spammers have been sending within the past few years have been evolving with incredible craftiness. These emails seem to surpass simple-minded spam filters that we blatantly continuously install. We read spam, curse spam, and have come to hate spam, but what if there was an existing spam filter that evolved along with the endlessly developing spam, leaving it one step ahead every time?
What is the origin of Bayesian Spam Filters?
There was a man that lived from 1702 to 1761 who’s name was Thomas Bayes, an English Presbyterian minister and mathematician. After he died the Royal Society published one of his most important findings in 1763 as the Philosophical Transactions. His findings simply stated that if a deadly disease existed such as Cluvitis (non-existent) and the symptoms were fever, runny nose, toothache, and more, just because you manage to get a runny nose that doesn’t mean you have Cluvitis. However, if you were to acquire another series of symptoms at equal intervals such as a fever, then this would greatly increase the chances that you might have Cluvitis.
Spam - Small Business
Dealing Effectively with Spam
Any business that believes spam is merely an annoyance in the office is sadly mistaking. A 2007 report by Nucleus Research shows that spam costs organizations in the United States $712 per employee every year. According to Nucleus, that adds up to an estimated $70 billion annually in lost productivity. The amount of time employees spend going through their inbox trying to distinguish junk mail from messages that require a response is invaluable time that could be spent handling more important tasks. Not only that, the flood of email that seems to grow larger has the power to tax the corporate network by gobbling up disk storage, bandwidth and other precious resources. Trying to manage all the extra emails and find a solution to the problem could also have a tremendous impact, particularly on a small business.
Things are grim, and while it looks as if spam is here to stay, there are a few ways you can minimize the affect it has on your business.
Spam Filter Blacklists and Whitelists
In order to be effective at distinguishing spam from legitimate emails, a spam filter needs to rely on various methods. Some of today’s most popular programs utilize blacklists and whitelists to filter out junk mail. As you’ve probably guessed, these counterparts are the exact opposite of one another. Senders listed on the blacklist are denied access to a particular email address while those on the whitelists are allowed. When combined with techniques such as Bayesian filtering and pattern matching, these lists better assure that a much lower volume of spam reaches your inbox.
Types of Blacklists
Whitelists are pretty dry and cut, but blacklists come in many different forms. Below are details one some of the most common types of blacklists:
IP Blockers: IP blacklists or blackhole lists, are huge repositories of IP addresses known for distributing spam. The organizations who manage these repositories use a variety of mechanisms to find out who is sending spam. These techniques range from human reporting to setting up decoy email accounts. Many spam filters are configured to examine incoming email and trace its origin. If it comes from an IP address of a known spammer, it is flagged accordingly and moved to a quarantine folder. IP addresses can be blocked by email server, local machine or an entire country.
Spam Filtering
Choosing the Right Anti-Spam software
Spam is easily one of the biggest annoyances for those who use the internet as their form of communication. The numbers on these bothersome messages is unsettling when considering that it’s believed that more than 80% of all email is spam. Most of it is unsolicited junk mail while a portion contains the latest scam or viral strain. When viewing the situation from the latter, this is certainly the type of email you want to avoid at all costs.
There are various techniques and mechanisms used to aid in the fight against spam. One of the most popular methods involves software solutions. In this article we will discuss spam filtering software and offer a few tips to keep in mind when searching for a program.
Spam Filtering Methods
First and foremost, it is important to understand that no single spam filtering method is 100% effective, mainly because spammers get more sophisticated each year. You can however, get quality results out of a software product that combines a variety of anti-spam techniques. Some of the most common filtering methods include the following:
• Bayesian filtering
• Heuristic analysis
• Signature matching
• Traffic-pattern analysis
Funniest Spam Ever Sent
We receive spam all the time and it’s such an nuisance, but every once in a while you come across a spam message that is just so ridiculously funny you just can’t help to laugh. These are actual spam emails that made their way into our junk mail folders at work which had us all in stitches. The creative use and misuse of the English language in the context of these spam emails makes them hilarious. Enjoy.
Subject: A Genuine Univers1ty Degree 1n 4-6 weeks!
Have you ever thought that the only thing stopping you from a great job and better pay was a few letters behind you name?
Well now you can get them!
BA BSc MA MSc MBA PhD
Within -46 weeks!
No Study Required!
100% Verifiable!
These are real, genuine degrees that include Bachelors, Masters, MBA and Doctorate Degrees. They are fully verifiable and certified transcripts are also available.
What Can You Do When Your Spam Filter blocks more of the good e-mails?
The war against spam is a cat-and-mouse game with spammers working relentlessly to outwit the spam filters.
Recently, we heard of a story where a law firms’ employees complained to their IT shop that they where getting to much spam even though the IT shop installed and configured spam filters on their email servers. To remedy this problem the IT shop increased filtering and the levels of spam were drastically decreased. But, their was a negative effect. Important emails where not getting through the filers and as a result this wound up costing the law firm money due to missed client appointments.
Their email filters were deleting important emails from clients in what are called false positives. A false positive is where the spam filter takes a negative action on what is really a valid email.
Since spam filters may never be 100% effective it is good practice to quarantine, and not to delete, all e-mails marked as spam into a spam folder. The folder should be accessible to all e-mail users so they can review the list of quarantine emails prior them being deleted.
It may be time consuming for email users to review their spam messages but this practice helps stop the automatic deletion of false positive valid emails.
How to catch sites selling your e-mail address to spammers using Google
If you’re like most people, not a week goes by that you don’t subscribe or enter your email address as part of registering on a new website. However, you have to be careful. Allot of websites are selling email address to spammers. These days we recommend using Google’s Gmail. Gmail has a few nice features which you can use to find out which websites may sell your email address to spammers.
Let’s say you are Tom Barton and you sign up for a Google Gmail account with the address tombarton@gmail.com. With Gmail you could use any of the following addresses and your emails will still arrive to the account tombarton@gmail.com.
TomBarton@gmail.com
tomBarton@gmail.com
Tom.Barton@gmail.com
t.o.mbarton@gmail.com
You can put any number of dots in your email address and it would still go to your primary Gmail account tombarton@gmail.com.
Another interesting feature with Gmail is that you can add text after your Gmail user id with a ‘+”. For example, you could register your email address at a website such as tombarton+website_name@gmail.com where web site name is the name of the website that you are registering your email address. Your conformation will still be forwarded to tombarton@gmail.com because Gmail doesn’t recognize any combination of words or numbers after the “+” sign.
The great part about using Gmail and registering your email address with the add-on of +website_name is that now you catch websites selling your e-mail address to spammers.
