Spam as Delivery Status Notification (Failure)

The newest wave of spam is quite clever. They are abusing the geek-sacred protocol of the DSN (Delivery Status Notification), adding an attached html file that is a script set to redirect to a distant website, maybe selling Viagra.

Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.
Delivery to the following recipients failed.

Look familiar? The standard, important notice that your email has bounced for some reason. Now it could be spam.

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Widespread Web Attack Infects Thousands

I received this email the other day:
"Brian, Have you heard about this? Have you scanned your server for this issue?"

Thanks. Yes, this is an old type of attack, at least for responsible server admins. (old being anything more than 6 months old) The problem comes from older scripts on the server.

Read more: Widespread Web Attack Infects Thousands

Spam Flow Back To 'Normal'

Sounds strange... Spam flow is 'normal'.  What we would like to see is 'gone', but that won't happen as long as the spammers can make money.

As I mentioned last week, there was a large wave of spam the last few weeks. And as expected the wave subsided.

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Why Blogging Is Not Great For All Websites

As I was posting about the increase in spam, I noticed that my last post was over a month ago, talking about a server outage. That's not the kind of stuff that you want staying on the frontpage. :)

This is why I recommend NOT blogging to many website owners. It takes a lot of time to regularly update a website, unless that is your job, or you  have a lot of free time managing your business.

Read more: Why Blogging Is Not Great For All Websites

Big Increase in Spam

The total volume of email has increased a lot in the last 2 months, and

Read more: Big Increase in Spam

Short Server Outage

Many of us woke up to no email this morning due to an outage at the data center. (we have our servers at ThePlanet.com) The servers  were up and running, but network issues were limiting access to the servers.

Some reports from ThePlanet techs:

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Fresh Phish and Spam

Last week it was fake confirmation email of Amazon Orders. Now we have a flood of phishing spam claiming Apple Store orders. Though most should get caught by email filters, some may get through. So, as a reminder, don't be fooled.

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Is Winter almost over?

Wow, time flies when things get busy. How busy? I just noticed I hadn't done my billing since December.. before the holidays!

Read more: Is Winter almost over?