News and Updates from Seven Sages

Seven Sages Online Profiles

info@sevensages.com (Website Management by Seven Sages) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Being online can become a mess of online profiles and identities. Many profiles just pop up in online directories, without you knowing, sometimes with incorrect information.

Instead of trying to fight against the tidal wave of information about you or your business, try to steer the flow to one or two locations you have complete control of.

Take control of the scattered chaos.

New Wave Of Spam Seems Personal

info@sevensages.com (Website Management by Seven Sages) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:39:23 +0000

I know, you bore of all this spam news. I do too. But, volume has increased yet again and I'm not just seeing it on my own servers, but also with Google App's and Postini.

Following the wave last month using the familiar looking 'Delivery Status Notification' (DSN) faking a bounced message, the spammers new technique appears to be using more familiar messages like Amazon order confirmations that look a lot like real Amazon orders. But it's getting a little scarier...

Spam as spoofed Email Policy Violation

info@sevensages.com (Website Management by Seven Sages) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:42:29 +0000

These spammers are good, really. Not wholesome good, but good at what they do which is bad. They are using simple mind games to infect your computer. Like their recent vector of attack using DSN (Delivery Status Notification), they are preying on your fear of trouble. The lastest is "Email Policy Violation" coming from your host's mailer-daemon.

subject Email Policy Violation
The attached message contains content which violates our email policy. The message was not delivered.

Who wouldn't open it to see if it was an important message you sent?

Spam as Delivery Status Notification (Failure)

info@sevensages.com (Website Management by Seven Sages) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:02:29 +0000

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.

Widespread Web Attack Infects Thousands

info@sevensages.com (Website Management by Seven Sages) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:42:38 +0000

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.

Spam Flow Back To 'Normal'

info@sevensages.com (Website Management by Seven Sages) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 15:24:44 +0000

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.

Why Blogging Is Not Great For All Websites

info@sevensages.com (Website Management by Seven Sages) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:14:42 +0000

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.

Big Increase in Spam

info@sevensages.com (Website Management by Seven Sages) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 11:10:40 +0000

I know, very big increase in spam.
It is likely caused by a botnet infecting many people, but I haven't seen any reports of it on any news sites.

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

Short Server Outage

info@sevensages.com (Website Management by Seven Sages) — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:28:24 +0000

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:

Fresh Phish and Spam

info@sevensages.com (Website Management by Seven Sages) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:50:05 +0000

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.