Refer a Friend... Get an XE-Filter Discount
We at CMS know that
XE-Filter is an excellent product.
Our
customers know that it is an excellent product and telling their friends and associates about XE-Filter is quite common.
So, we have decided to try to expand this viral, grass-root marketing of XE-Filter by offering these existing customer access to the
XE-Filter Rewards Program. Refer a friend or associate to XE-Filter and upon their purchase, receive discounts of 20% to 100% on support fees.
It's a good deal. So if you are an XE-Filter site already, tell a friend and take advantage of the new discounts.
If you are not an XE-Filter site, maybe you want to buy one for yourself and then.... refer a friend.
AAS
Denial of Service Flood - Update
Just an update on a previous blog...
Just about two weeks ago, one of our customers, a small trucking company, was under a severe
"Denial of Service" spam attack.
Averaging about 1 million bogus messages a day, their use of the CMS XE-Filter product saved their operations and bought them time to ride out the email storm.
Over the period of the attack,
XE-Filter refused 20 million spam email messages that tried to reach their server.
But now the onslaught appears to be just about over. And if it is just a lull in the storm, well they still have XE-Filter, their first line of protection.
So again, XE-Filter preformed admirably, but
our customers knew it would.
AAS
Denial of Service Flood ... Rejected
Normally I don’t venture into tech support. They are several buildings away from my desk and I spent enough time in tech support during my dark past, but an email I received from them today got my attention.
Apparently there is a small trucking and container company located on the West Coast whose domain was hijacked by spammers and is currently under a massive “Denial of Service" spam attack.
Since early March, this company, with 15 employee mailboxes, is averaging over 1 million incoming, bogus email messages per day.
Bad news? No, not really.
This company is an
XE-Filter customer and XE-Filter has worked flawlessly in protecting their email server from this DoS attack.
The CEO of CMS, Lih-Tah Wong, thinks that the attack on this company goes beyond just ordinary spam…
“The stats show that they are still getting pounded with the same crap they have been getting since early March. Since this flood has not subsided, someone is continuing to use their domain name in sending out spam. It seems malicious and intentional to me”.
So the good news is that
XE-Filter’s Denial of Service protection let these West Coast guys go about their normal business.
So while XE-Filter has started out as simply a “Country-of-Origin” filter, it has now become a major means of email protection for many, many companies.
AAS
Is Spam Declining?
An interesting question has been posed to CMS technicians over the past few weeks.... "Are spam volumes declining"?
The answer of course is "NO". So what is happening?
Apparently somes XE-Filter sites are reporting a
reduction in their spam filtering rates and spam volumes. So where is the spam going?
It took a little research but CMS technicians now believe that sophisticated spammers, monitoring their spamming success rates have noticed that certain IP addresses are not worth their time and resources. And so, they are de-listing these IP addresses.
CMS folks believe that XE-Filter, with many sites
filtering over 95% of all incoming mail before it ever reaches a mail server, is apparently both getting noticed and getting ignored by large spammers.
So the recipe is quite simple...
- Add XE-Filter, highly effective with four layers of email protection
- Prevent unwanted email from ever reaching your email servers
- Get the attention of large, sophisticated spammers
- Get ignored by large sophisticated spammers.
- Only get the email you want.
Simple.
AAS
Spam-in' On Up to the Eastside
First, my apologies to George and Wheezy for paraphrasing their theme song as my title.
Now isn't this interesting. Apparently the “Russian Business Network” (RBN) has disappeared from St. Petersburg and is thought to be
relocating to China.
For those who are unfamiliar with RBN, let me fill you in… Just see the “
Rock Phish” item I published several weeks ago. This is representative of the clientele for the RBN, just your usual child porn, identity theft, spamming by the millions folks. Known to many but beyond the reach of authority (if an authority exists).
The current thinking is that this host to Russian cyber-crooks has found a sympathetic home within the vast Chinese internet (
162 million Internet users, 1.31 million websites and 67 million online computers).
So now, spammer hosts have the anonymity to relocate under an international curtain. If it's too hot in St. Petersburg
(hard to believe in December), move on to the next welcoming country.
So how do Russian officials view the folks over at RBN?
"A spokesman for the Russian Embassy at first denied any knowledge of the RBN, then suggested that it was based in England." (Read)
One researcher suggests that to some, “Robin Hood” is alive and well…
"Hackers are bad-arse freedom fighters who are putting it to fat westerners with too much money, and that's not seen as a bad thing." (Read)
And of course the Secretary General of Interpol, Ronald K. Noble, states the obvious…
"It is clear that organized cybercrime has taken root in countries that don't have response mechanisms, laws, infrastructure and investigative support set up to respond to the threat quickly."
(Read)Even Robert Mueller, FBI Director acknowledges that cyber-threats are international…
"Increasingly, cyber threats originate outside of our borders". (Read)
So what can a small business, community or school do to protect themselves and email from international spam threats? I know. Filter your email based on Country-Of-Origin.
Simple fix. Grand results.
AAS
Rock Phish, Nepal and the Holidays
It’s the Friday after Thanksgiving (Here in the USA) and I’m watching the kids while my wife shops. It’s also perhaps one of the slowest business days imaginable, so I have a chance to update the blog with a little spam news.
“ROCK PHISH RULES” (Read)
Rock and Roll! Is it the latest musical group from St. Petersburg,
Russia? No, but as this articles suggests, it “
might be the greatest success story of the former Eastern Bloc's high-tech boom – if only it weren’t so illegal”.
Rock Phish is raking in over $100,000,000 a year from unsuspecting email victims willing to give out names, addresses, Social Security Numbers and more to these international folks who can craft a well designed email.
END OF THE ROAD FOR SPAM IN NEPAL (Read)At first I thought “
Great, another international spam story, right up my alley and perfect for XE-Filter". But who knew that in Nepal SPAM really stands for “
Seven
Party
Alliance and
Maoists”.
Stopping international spam email is one thing, but I think the XE-Filter will have to stay out of rebellions, uprisings and other geo-political events.
“TIS THE SEASON”The season of Christmas, Hanukah, and all the rest brings not only family, friends and fun, but also a deluge of holiday spam.
Be safe, be careful and as always... consider filtering email by "
Country or Origin".
AAS
Spam for Fun and Profit in Vietnam
“In your face world” is literally what some Vietnamese companies are saying by turning spam generation into an open and legitimate business. From the article “Spam eMail in Vietnam”, comes this beauty of a quote…
- “Spam mail delivery service has been professionalised in Vietnam. In Hanoi, tens of companies publicly announce they provide this service to clients. Those companies are ready to help their clients to send spam emails to a million mailboxes a day”.
So while the rest of the world is attempting to legislate spam out of existence (good luck with that), some Vietnamese companies are embracing spam email as a capitalist, profit generating business opportunity. Forget the annoyance of “VI-ag-rah” subject lines or the millions of dollars spent to filter email, Vietnam will pump spam by the ton into your mailbox.
With anti-spam laws non-existent in Vietnam, notice this statement from a salesmen of spam generating software in Vietnam. It puts them in direct violation of the CAN-SPAM act in the USA.
- “What law? What rule is there about it? Nobody in Vietnam bans you from sending advertising emails. Moreover, our software allows you to add any email address to the sender status so nobody can know that you are the spammer”.
Take that CAN-SPAM. These Vietnamese guys will put any email address they like into the sender and you can't do a thing about it. Can you?
Of course you can ... Try Country of Origin email filtering based upon the IP-Address and not just easily disguised domain names or message body text.
Or are you still convinced that “feel-good” anti-spam laws passed “look-at-me-I-care” politicians work? Remember, no legislation alone is effective when spam originates in countries that really don’t care and allow the establishment of operations that would be illegal in other parts of the world.
So you can reject email based upon its country of origin, check out our free XE-Filter software.
AAS
antispam spam email Vietnam CAN-SPAM spam origin