My ISP unleashes loads of SPAM but I must delete it., 30/05/07, Rob McGonigle on Internet Search & SMEs

May 30, 2007

My ISP unleashes loads of SPAM but I must delete it.

Writing about web page http://www.plus.net

My ISP PlusNet, now a BT subsiduary, has unleashed a whole torrent of the vilest SPAM, the sort of stuff that dried up 2 years ago. Their webmail platform was hacked and about 25% of their email addresses were passed to these old-fashioned spammers.

My family’s emails addresses were amongst those that were stolen.
Luckily most of the addresses use a slightly different form of our addresses so I have been able to create rules to filter the great bulk of these.

The ISP is now offering a ‘free service’ to filter SPAM remotely before download. They cannot delete any emails so I still have to clear our the junk. I will be contrasting this with other policies in a later posting but I can understand why this is necessary.

Interestingly PlusNet have moved to SquirrelMail as their webmail platform, the same as our students use here at the University of Warwick. This is yet another example of an open source application that seems to be winning large academic and corporate clients. I will pass this note on to my colleagues at the NB2BC as they are more knowledgeable about the use of open source software by business and track these things closely.

Robert McGonigle : 30 May 2007 10:19 | Tags: ITS Spam Spam Filters Squirrel Mail Squirrelmail | Comments (2) | Report a problem

2 comments by 1 or more people

Bob Pullen

Hi Robert,

Sorry to hear you’ve been affected by the recent problems. Your 25% figure’s a bit of a shot in the dark however as I don’t think even we can accurately say exactly how many addresses were harvested.

Anyways, you mention that you have to clean out the Junk folder following our new implementation. Not sure if you’re aware but you don’t actually have to do this as we’ll delete it automatically after 30 days or so. All you might want to do is ensure any valid emails are moved back into your Inbox.

You might also be able to help minimise some of the nuisance with black holes:-
http://www.plus.net/support/security/spam/blocking_spam_emails.shtml

Kind Rgds,

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Customer Support

31 May 2007, 11:16
Robert McGonigle

Bob Pullen,

Thank you for your comment and advice.

Point taken about the numbers of email addresses harvested –
I just picked up the proportion of servers affected.
(Surely the number of customers suddenly getting loads of spam from blackhole candidates must give Plusnet a clue as to how many were harvested.)

I trust you will see this response. I always reply directly when I have an email address or other blog link.

Your comment was quicker and more direct than I have ever received when leaving a question on Plusnet’s support pages! I will not assume that an entry on an obscure work blog will work so well again but it is a thought :-)

31 May 2007, 15:47

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May 30, 2007