Posted June 18th, 2013, in News + Events
June 18, 2013
Change Log
- Add hourly SpamAssassin rule updates from the FSL rules repository
- Speed up reports where a summary table can be used
- New option to enable/disable forced sub-domain routing for a domain
- Change ‘Click Whitelisting’ page to display TTLs in seconds instead of minutes.
- Fix quarantine report links when displayed on Webmail clients that do not support the use of the HTML tag.
- Strip any accidental whitespace from report filters
- Fix SQL error when non-boolean operators are used on boolean fields
- Fix handling of ‘like’ operator when applied to the ‘Client IP Address’ field in the reports.
- Fix pager display when the ‘Back to report’ button is clicked from the Message Detail page.
- Add pager and ‘Back to Reports’ button to the bottom of the page in the Message Listing report.
- Fix the storage and display of comments in the Exception List editor.
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Posted April 26th, 2013, in Techie Talk
Recently we have seen massive amounts of Spam coming from the .pw Top Level Domain.
Domain .pw is the country code top-level domain for Palau. It was originally delegated to the Pacific island nation of Palau in 1997. It has since been re-delegated a number of times, most recently by Directi, a group of businesses operating registrars amongst other Internet-related services, who re-branded it as the Professional Web. From March 25, 2013, domains under the .pw TLD are available to the general public. These domains are sold at rock bottom prices which have apparently attracted droves of spammers.
Since we have yet to see a legitimate piece of mail for the .pw domain but have recently seen massive amounts of spam from this domain, we are recommending that you block mail form this domain as soon as practical. It’s quite simple to do:
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Posted March 25th, 2013, in Techie Talk
If you have noticed an increase in spam recently, there is a good reason – the amount of spam in the Internet has more than doubled in volume since January. Cisco reports on recent spam volumes shows:
- A spam increase of 150% in February compared to January
- A spam increase of 210% March (to date) compared to January
Not all of this is getting through our filters. We’re still catching most of the older types of spam at the same rates but we are now seeing two new types of spam.
Yahoo spam is not really new since Yahoo has been the major source of “freemail” spam for quite a while now. But now it looks like spammers are really starting to take advantage of Yahoo’s failure to crack down on account hacking and spammer owned accounts.
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Posted February 12th, 2013, in News + Events
By Steve Freegard
Our BarricadeMX products have supported greylisting since they were first released. From the beginning, our greylisting used custom modifications to make it more acceptable to businesses and to address some of the original method’s shortcomings.
As we have started working on what will become the 3rd version of the BarricadeMX SMTP engine; I started by looking back at support issues over the past few years to see what we could do better and decide what should and should not be present in the new version.
As part of that review process – I started looking again at greylisting; should we keep it or should it go? I had found a number of tickets where we had advised customers to whitelist servers because they didn’t handle greylisting at all. But was this reason enough to get rid of it completely? Is it still effective?
Read more here….
Posted January 30th, 2013, in News + Events
You may have noticed on our web site that we have just released a major upgrade for our BarricadeMX PLUS customers. The details of this upgrade can be found here:
Today I’m happy to tell you that we are now working on bringing the Haraka engine to our BarricadeMX customers. We will also be adding additional updates and features to BarricadeMX that are not yet part of BarricadeMX Plus. These improvements will include:
- A new web interface written in Node JS
- New High speed logging and reporting
- A new Bayesian classification engine
Along with many other new, advanced spam detection technologies. This upgrade should be available this spring.
We are also glad to announce that this major upgrade for BarricadeMX will be a “No Charge” upgrade for customers that are current on their maintenance contracts.
For those of you who don’t want to wait for the Haraka version of BarricadeMX or need the additional features provided by the new version of BarricadeMX Plus, we will be offering discounted upgrade pricing packages for upgrading from BarricadeMX to BarricadeMX Plus. Please contact robin@fsl.com for details, demos and pricing.
We are also looking for sites that would like to participate in the Beta testing of BarricadeMX so please send an email to support@fsl.com if you are interested participating in the Beta program.
As always, we very much appreciate your business and look forward to bringing you the very best anti-spam products available.
Best regards,
FortAntispam Support Team
Posted October 3rd, 2012, in News + Events
While you haven’t heard from us for a while, it doesn’t mean that we haven’t been busy. We’re ready to share some big announcements with you.
Here is what we’ve been working on:
- BarricadeMX PLUS gets new SMTP level filtering application. This is huge. We’ve completely rewritten the Level One filter and it’s awesome. Get more details below.
- New Website. Check out our new look at www.fsl.com. As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome.
- Monthly Tech & Admin Live Forum. Do you have questions or just need some help and would like to be able to talk to us live? We are listening and starting in October you will be able to sign up for a web conference where you can bring your questions, concerns and any new ideas to share with us. Keep an eye on our website for the date and how to register for the event. I will also send out a reminder before the event.
Posted September 12th, 2012, in Techie Talk
By Steve Swaney
The related video blog can be found on YouTube here.
This is Part 5 of a five-part series on understanding how email works. This is based on a presentation I gave at Florida State University to a graduate level class for Computer Systems Administrators.
In part 5 of a series of blogs and videos in understanding email, I’ll explain how to manually send email and explain to you how forged emails are created. This may help you in troubleshooting email issues. To watch the video presentation with screen shots, check Fort’s YouTube channel.
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Posted September 5th, 2012, in News + Events
By Steve Swaney, President of Fort Systems
In part 4 of a 5 part series of blogs and videos in understanding email, I’ll explain how email applications use Domain Name Service or DNS. To watch the video presentation, check YouTube.
How DNS Came About
Domain Name Service more commonly referred to as DNS provides the underpinnings for the Internet. So it should come as no surprise that if DNS fails, email delivery fails.
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Posted August 17th, 2012, in Techie Talk
By Steve Swaney
The related video blog can be found on YouTube here.
This is Part 3 of a five part series on understanding how email works. This is based on a presentation I gave at Florida State University to a graduate level class for Computer Systems Administrators. This presentation is about email protocols.
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Posted August 17th, 2012, in Techie Talk
By Steve Swaney, President of Fort Systems Ltd.
This is Part 2 of a five part series on understanding how email works. In Part 2, I’ll review email applications. You can also watch our video blog to learn more.
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