Showing posts with the label dnsbls

Does Spamhaus matter today?

Short answer: Yes. Longer answer: Still yes, and here's why. Spamhaus. If you're in the business of sending email, you've probably heard the name. Maybe not as much lately. But that doesn't mean you can ignore them. Right now, email senders are heads-down trying to get their SPF, DKIM, and DMARC right. Between new MAGY sender requirements, complaint rate thresholds, and prop…
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Alison Gootee: Understanding Blocklists

Do blocklists matter? Are you going to have deliverability troubles if your sending IP address is on a blocklists? It's a complex question, as the nature of blocklists and their usefulness has evolved over the years. They were a prime part of the spam filtering equation man…

Spamhaus blocking queries from Digital Ocean Cloud servers

As part of their continuing efforts to lock down unrestricted public access to their reputation data, Spamhaus has announced that as of February 14, 2024, they'll be blocking DNSBL queries made via Digital Ocean's Cloud Server infrastructure. Read more about it here . T…

Spamhaus: The return of the ASN-DROP

Spamhaus just announced that they've "reinvigorated" the ASN-DROP list , now available in JSON format. The point of this whole thing is for network operators (think ISPs and similar) to just totally block off any potential connections with really bad networks that…

Webinar Alert: Me + Matthew Stith from Spamhaus

Hey, fellow email nerds! It's webinar time again. What do you know about Spamhaus ? If not everything, I hope you'll join Matthew Stith and myself on March 21st at 9:00 am central time, where we'll talk about Spamhaus, what it is, how (and why) blocklists work, how …

Does Gmail use Spamhaus? Or any other blocklists?

This is a question I get a lot. Does Gmail use any blocklists? Or, somebody will tell me that they're having Gmail issues, and they've plugged their own IP address into an online blocklist lookup tool , and they are sure that any results found (blocklisting issues) must…

Spamhaus to block queries from AWS

Hey, email nerds! Are you like me, running various random EC2 instances with scripts or applications that do a bunch of spam and email message analysis, checking (among other things) all the domains and IPs you find? Okay, there aren't millions of us, but I know I'm not…

Spamhaus just woke up. Are you ready?

Timely! I just blogged recently talking about what you should do if you get blocklisted by Spamhaus , and now Spamhaus just posted this:  Poor sending practices trigger a tidal wave of informational listings . What does it all mean and should you be concerned? Let me explain. W…

HOWTO: Query Spamhaus Safely

You'll recall me warning recently that using Spamhaus data to protect your mail server is a bad idea if you're using open or public DNS resolvers . TL;DR? Spamhaus is worried about too much traffic via public channels but blocking is implemented in a way that makes it …

Be careful: Using Spamhaus with open resolvers is bad news

Do you use any of the Spamhaus blocking lists (DNSBLs) to protect yourself from inbound spam and email threats? If so, you're not alone. The Spamhaus data is quite popular and used by many ISPs as a front door gatekeeper for IP (and domain) reputation.

Abusix: 8 ways on how ESPs and DNSBL providers can collaborate better

Steve Freegard, Sr. Product Owner Abusix Intelligence recently shared his thoughts on how ESPs can better position themselves with regard to blocking list (DNSBL) issues. He recommends segmenting traffic by IP address, using different subdomains or domains for each customer, li…

Spamhaus warns: Watch for new (error) response codes

Anti-spam blocking list group Spamhaus is warning that come March 2021, they will begin implementation of new error codes (DNSBL lookup responses) that they may provide in response to certain queries run against the Spamhaus blocking lists. Those new codes are meant to alert yo…

Spamcop glitch over the weekend; since fixed

The Cisco-owned Spamcop.net  spam reporting and blocking list service ran into a bit of trouble this weekend as their "spamcop.net" domain name was allowed to expire. The domain's DNS records reverted to some default "parking" setting by (I think) their…

Lashback UBL blocklist: OFFLINE

LashBack's unsubscribe blacklist (" UBL "), as described by its publisher "is a unique, real-time blacklist of IP addresses which have sent email to addresses harvested from suppression files." It's a neat idea, an interesting way to monitor for fai…

Need simple DNSBL/blocking list tracking?

If you need simple DNSBL blocking list (or blacklist) tracking, here's a couple of services that both seem to work well: Debouncer and RBL Tracker . Both are free if monitoring only a single IP address. For Debouncer, you can monitor up to ten IP addresses at an 8 hour int…

Dead DNSBLs: all.rbl.webiron.net and bsb.spamlookup.net

Two anti-spam blocking lists appear to have died or malfunctioned recently. Users on the Mailop mailing list are reporting that Webiron (all.rbl.webiron.net) blocklist appears to be malfunctioning. Its domain has expired and the temporary holding pattern pending payment or ter…

Spamhaus Blocklist Changes

Speaking of Spamhaus, this just popped up in my RSS feed reader. It looks like Spamhaus is going to take a harder stance against users who query their lists via open or public DNS systems (such as Google Public DNS or Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 Service). They're going to r…

Another Dead DNSBL

It seems as though my website over at DNSBL.com has turned into a graveyard for dead DNSBLs. Over the past few years, I've observed more than a dozen blacklists go missing, and I've written  about more than a dozen others who were shut down prior to that or weren't…

RFC Ignorant Blacklist Shutting Down

One-time Yahoo administrator  Derek Balling has announced that the RFC Ignorant blocking list is being shut down . This blocking list had existed since at least  late 2001 . Its listing criteria including things like not having an "abuse" or "postmaster"addr…

DNSBL Safety Report 5/14/2011

SpamTips.org, a website devoted to SpamAssassin Tips ( SpamAssassin being the wildly popular open-source spam filter) recently posted a wonderful DNSBL Safety Report , showing hit rates against both spam and non-spam (false positives) for various blacklists commonly used in Spa…