Articles by henric

Last week we finally released the new iOS app, SpamDrain 2.0, with support for both iPhone and iPad. A big hand to all beta testers that made the release possible. The past six months we have been working hard to finalize what is a complete rewrite of the old app. We have tried to gather all the feedback we have received from our lovely users and transform that into new features and improvements which hopefully makes the app more useful and usable. I know already that many of you love the improvements, but we also know that some of you don’t. That’s why it’s important that you keep sending us valuable feedback so we can keep up the work of improving the app even more.

Ok, enough with the words, give me some screenshots.

New message lists with search capability and filtering on classification Spam?, Spam, Virus, Newsletter etc. This makes it easier to find messages you are looking for.

Report and release directly from the message lists. Also more options that will give more feedback to the filter.

Clear indication of what has happened to a message. You now see directly in the list if you have reported or released a message and to which color you have changed it.

New email viewer with zoom functionality. Ok, it may be a standard feature, but we are very proud of the new email viewer which is more like the native email viewer in your iPhone. You can zoom and scroll and unlock images and links. As before you may also report or release the message directly from the email viewer.

Report and release when viewing a message. Hopefully it’s also a bit clearer what happens when you give feedback to SpamDrain.

Update report settings for the app. Control how often you want the SpamDrain reports sent to you. We have also made it possible to update your name, company name etc.

Android app
We are also working on a similar rewrite of our Android app but we have not set the release date yet. We will however, release a minor update to our Android app next week or so that will rename the Archive and Report to Blocked and Allowed. We will also make similar updates to our web UI, so the experience is consistent on all devices. But until then, there will be a mix of terminology.

Please note
Unfortunately there is currently a known issue in the iOS app. If your iOS device is set to use 12-hour time, the app crashes when you sign in. We have already submitted a fix to Apple for review, but it may take another week before the new version is approved.

Until then, please make sure to set the 24-hour setting to “On” to use the SpamDrain app. You do this in your iPhone/iPad settings->General->Date&Time.

Last week we released what we hope to be the final beta of the SpamDrain iOS app. Now we would like more users testing the beta before we push it to App Store. So…last chance folks before we make the final adjustments .

Please click the button below to join the beta program – and remember to add your device in TestFlight – otherwise we won’t be able to send you any beta builds.

Join the beta program

We use Testflight for this beta program which is a well known platform for rolling out test versions of iOS apps. Click the button above to sign up with Testflight and join our beta program.

Once you have added your iOS devices and we have approved you as tester you will be able to install our current beta release.

As we announced last week we now have released the first beta of our new iOS app and the beta testing is going well. In a week we will release a second beta and hopefully after that we will be able to push it to App Store.

Before we publish the second beta we will now open up for more beta testers. So if you haven’t signed up for a beta testing account in TestFlight already, please do so now. Remember to add your device as well – otherwise we won’t be able to send you any beta-releases.

Join the beta program

We use Testflight for this beta program which is a well known platform for rolling out test versions of iOS apps. Click the button above to sign up with Testflight and join our beta program.

Once you have added your iOS devices and we have approved you as tester you will be able to install our current beta release.

Today we have released the first beta of our new iOS app. It will be available to a selected number of beta testers registered at TestFlight. If you are intereseted in joining the beta programe, please see our earlier post.

New features introduced in SpamDrain 2.0:

• Search in filtered messages.
• Renamed Archive and Report to Blocked and Allowed.
• iPad support
• Report and release now has more choices.
• Empty filtered message per filtered address.
• View filtered messages per address and not always all filtered addresses.
• Filter search result based on classification, Ok, Spam, Newsletter, Virus etc.
• Delete individual messages.
• Report and release directly from message lists.
• See messages that has been reported and released.
• Update account and user information such as name and report email interval.

You will see feedback buttons inside the app. Please use them to send us feedback about this beta. We welcome all comments – both complaints and compliments and will try to use them to improve SpamDrain.

Today we did the one of the last updates to our servers to prepare for our new mobile apps. One more update is planned later today and some of the last bugs in the iOS app is also left to fix. After this we will finally release the first iOS beta to some of you who have registered your interest at TestFlight.

We also want to thank everyone who has signed up for the beta testing program. As for now we are very happy with the number of interested beta testers and we will soon start approve you in TestFlight.

Please make sure you have added a device in TestFlight since we won’t be able to send any releases to users without registered devices. So go into TestFlight on your iOS device and make sure to add it if you want to join the first beta release which we hope to send out tomorrow.

The past months we have been working on new versions of our mobile apps for iOS and Android. We will release both of them later this year starting with iOS in Q1 followed by Android in Q2. For our iOS app we have reached the point where we soon would like some help from our fantastic users. That’s right – you! Before we release the app to the App Store we would to get some help testing it to iron out any remaining bugs and get some final feedback before we go live.

Join the beta program

We use Testflight for this beta program which is a well known platform for rolling out test versions of iOS apps. Click the button above to sign up with Testflight and join our beta program. Once we have a first beta ready for you to try out you will receive an email from Testflight with instructions on how to get it installed onto your device.

Below you see a sneak preview of the blocked (old archive) and allowed (old report) message lists.

New blocked with search function

New allowed email list with search function

We are currently experiencing major disturbances in one of our data centers. This leads to big disturbances in the SpamDrain service. We are working with our hosting provider to try to solve this as soon as possible.
We apologize for the invonvenience.

Update 08:45 GMT+01: All systems are now up and running again and we are monitoring all systems carefully. There may be some minor disturbances the next hour or so due to delays caused by the recent outage.

I just realized that this is the second blog post this year. We are not the best bloggers – we know – sorry for that – but hopefully we are better spam stoppers than we are bloggers.

One reason for not updating you all on what’s going on is because there are so many things going on . The past months we have been more than busy to manage the growth we are experiencing at the moment which is really exciting. This week we have deployed a bunch of new servers and more are one the way. When this is done we are more prepared than ever to meet the growth we hope to see the next year. Besides from technical stuff like ordering new servers, rewriting and optimizing code and databases we are also helping new customer understand how to use SpamDrain. While doing so we have received a lot of valuable feedback which we are very grateful for. Thank you!

As a result of all the great feedback, we have started a complete rewrite of our iOS and Android apps. Our message lists on the web will also be updated. We will bring more features to the apps and hopefully also a more responsive and easy-to-use UI. Unfortunately we cannot say exactly when the apps will be ready but we will keep you updated.

We are also very interested in getting beta testers to these new versions. Please send us an email to beta@spamdrain.net and let us know if you are interested in Android or iOS beta testing.

Enough with the blogging – back to work!

Today we have submitted a new version of our SpamDrain iOS app for review. In this update you will now be able to empty the Archive and Report sections which is handy if you want to keep your Archive clean. Using the Empty function enables you to keep track on new messages that have been filtered since you last emptied your Archive.

We have also fixed a very annoying bug that occurred for some users when signing up. They got stuck in the last step after having the error message “This field is required” presented. We finally managed to identify the root cause for this one.

Another change with this update is concerning Apple’s In App Purchase. For reasons unknown to us, Apple no longer allow services like SpamDrain to use their auto-renewable subscriptions. Instead we need to switch to non-renewing subscriptions. This means that you need to renew manually before the subscription ends. It’s not that big a deal since most of our users pay using our web page where it already works like this. But for our monthly subscribers that are used to getting their subscription renewed every month, there will be a change. We ask for your understanding – this is totally out of our control and is due to regulations from Apple.

If you like you can always renew your subscription by logging on to our web page: https://app.spamdrain.net and click the $ icon in the upper right corner.

If you pay your subscription through our web page, you do not need to worry about this change. It only concerns customers who use In App Purchase from within our app.

As we said in earlier post we will donate SEK 0.01 for every blocked spam during the charity event Musikhjälpen for girls’ right to go to school. The event has now come to an end and our spam counter stopped at 1,331,461 blocked spam. This results in a donation of SEK 13,314.61.
Hopefully it will give more girls the right to go to school. The entire event brought in over SEK 18 million (about USD 2.6 million).
Thank you all customers for choosing SpamDrain as your primary filtering service.
Merry Christmas to you all!

SpamDrain skänker 1 öre per blockerat spam under veckan Musikhjälpen pågår.

SpamDrain has once again decided to donate 1 öre (0,01 SEK) for each spam we block during the week of the event. A normal week we block about 1 300 000 spam.

Amount to be donated (now final):

counter will stop at 2011-12-18 when Musikhjälpen ends.

Remember, all girls have the right to education!

More info: www.musikhjalpen.se (Swedish).

We have now finished the job with version 1.7 of our SpamDrain app for iOS and got it approved by Apple. In this new version you will be able to update your filtering settings, add new addresses for filtering and see the status of the filtering. For example you may now see if SpamDrain is having trouble logging in or connecting to your provider’s servers. These features have been available for some time on our web site but we also thought we wanted to provide it in our mobile apps, starting with iOS.

Please rate us – again

We also want to thank you all for your great reviews we are receiving, both in App Store and in Android Market. This really motivate us to keep up the work to stop spam from reaching your iPhones, Androids or other phones and computers.

We would like to ask you to rate the new version in App Store – even if you already have done so. Since the rating to some extent are reset when you release a new version we really need your help to keep our great rating up. Thanks!

A while ago we modified our regular SpamDrain subscription slightly. You may now filter up to five addresses in a SpamDrain account (for only €9.99 or $14.99 / year and address) compared to single address filtering as before. This simplifies for all of you beloved customers who want to filter a couple of extra addresses since you do not need to manage separate logins to different SpamDrain accounts but may instead handle all filtering with one login to our site and iPhone and Android apps.

As before you may also choose SpamDrain+. With SpamDrain+ you may add multiple users, filter domains and utilize our personal support. For more info please visit http://spamdrain.net/en/spamdrain-plus

By the way…talking about our apps – we will shortly update our iPhone app so you can view filtering status for all your addresses and update your filtering settings. Stay tuned.

We are experiencing delays in the delivery of domain filtered emails for one of our servers at the moment. This doesn’t affect all emails and only emails sent to domain filtered address, not POP3/IMAP filtered ones.
We are currently working on setting up new servers and fixing the faulty one and expect it to be solved later today. We regret the inconvenience.

Update: We have now solved this and moved traffic to new servers, replacing the faulty one. There should no more delays and all delayed messages should now have been delivered.

Today we have some good news for all our customers who filter their domain through SpamDrain. You will now be able to manage aliases to filtered addresses directly on the web. There is no extra cost for adding aliases but they must be mapped to one or several filtered addresses. You can also have aliases from one domain pointing to addresses in another one .

We have also improved domain handling so it should be easier to add and manage your domain filtering. You can now also search for both filtered addresses and aliases in the domains page. This feature is also available in the users page.

Please note that all changes made to the domain filtering will take up to five minutes before they propagate to all servers.

Today we have made it easier for you to share SpamDrain and for you to get something out of it. Well, you probably already know that if everyone was using a great spam filter, sending spam wouldn’t pay off and the internet would be a much better and happier place. Help us making the world spam free by inviting your friends and colleagues to join SpamDrain and we will reward you with free months.

We have added a new Sharing page  where you can send invites or share SpamDrain in your social networks, blogs, web pages etc. Simply Log in to your SpamDrain account and hit the Share icon in the upper right corner.

For every paying new filtered address you generate, we will add extra months to your subscription – depending on how many addresses you currently filter. For example, if you filter one address today, you will receive three free months for every new paying filtered address you generate. If you filter two addresses you will receive 1.5 free months for every new filtered address.

The more addresses your friends filter the more free months you receive. Isn’t that great?

If you are generating great volumes you will have the opportunity to join our reseller program instead and start earning real money.

So, start sharing today and make the world a bit more spam free.

Other new features in this update

• Messages that you have retrieved from the archive can now be displayed and re-delivered.
• Clearer indication when a message is blocked due to blacklisted sender.
• Remove entries from blacklist.
• You may now extend your subscription even when there is more than a year left.

Our support will be closed for the summer holidays starting at 18 July 2011 and re-opens again 15 August 2011. We will answer your e-mails as usual during the working days, but the phone support will be closed.

Have a nice summer!

For some time we have working on a new type of filter which blocks newsletters and marketing emails. We have being testing it for a while we are really happy with the progress. So today we tell you a little bit more about how it works. Really soon we will enable new functionality in our iPhone, Android and web apps, enabling you to control this filter. (We actually updated our web site today already)

First, some background. As you know you can report spam that SpamDrain has failed to block. This is done in our mobile apps or by logging on to our web site. We have noticed that different users have different definitions of spam. The most obvious definition might be “spam is everything I don’t want in my inbox” (even messages you have accepted to receive but don’t take the time to unsubscribe to). However, there is a problem with this definition. Some people want coupon offers from their local store and some do not want them. With viagra mail it’s much simpler – nobody wants that crap.

We have therefore chosen to introduce this new filter which identifies newsletters and marketing emails and put them in your Archive marked as “Newsletters”. These emails are always listed in your daily/weekly/monthly SpamDrain report so you never have to worry about missing important offers. Of course, you will be able to retrieve/release these blocked message as usual. When retrieving blocked messages from the Archive, SpamDrain will learn not to block similar messages again. You can also turn this filter entirely off.

To train our filters to become even more efficient, we appreciate if you our users could give us a little help when retrieving a message: You will now be asked to classify the message. By helping us deciding why you are retrieving a specific message you will help improving the overall filtering accuracy. The choice you will be given is:

You will get the same question when retrieving a message in the mobile apps.

We hope you will like these improvements – and hey, if you don’t – you can always turn the newsletter filter off. We hope you will enjoy receiving even less spam in the future. Please let us know what you think about these updates.

Please let us know what you think about these updates.

More for more information about the newsletter filter and retrieval of messages from the Archive.

This weekend we have experienced disturbances in some of our filtering servers. We believed that we solved all problems on Sunday 3 July, but today we found some more issues which now have been resolved.

During the passed disturbances you may have experienced some delays in email delivery if using our domain filtering. If using POP3/IMAP filtering you may have gotten spam slipping through since SpamDrain hasn’t filtered your email account with the normal frequency.

We apologize the inconvenience and are monitoring all servers extra carefully the next days.

We have updated our terms and conditions as per 1st July 2011. We do this to make our terms easier to read and understand, and better reflect product improvements we’ve made lately to SpamDrain. Please read the new terms at spamdrain.net/en/terms-and-conditions-for-spamdrain.

The terms will be affective for new customers now and for current customer as of August 1st 2011.

When the new terms is effective, you will for example be able to view the content of messages in the “Report” section. This is a highly wanted feature for many of our users. This way it will be easier for you to report missed spam since you will be able to see the entire message before deciding if it was a missed spam or not.

Please also note that by continuing to use SpamDrain, you agree to our new Terms and Conditions which will be effective on August 1st, 2011.

We have now officially launched our new prices for SpamDrain+. Enjoy the new lower prices at http://spamdrain.net/en/prices.

An interesting question has been raised and researched regarding the possibility of getting a grip on the spam problem from a new angle and hitting the spammers where it hurts – their bank accounts.

In swedish: http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.388062/inga-pengar-ingen-spam

In english: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/05/25/how-to-stop-spammers-focus-on-money-going-out-not-spam-coming-in/

There will be some maintanance work on network infrastructure in one of the SpamDrain data centers the coming two nights (CET time):

Wednesday 05/25/2011 between 0:30am and 6:00am CET (UTC/GMT +1 hour)

Thursday 05/26/2011 between 0:30am and 6:00am CET (UTC/GMT +1 hour)

During this time you may experience down times and increased response times. If you experience problems during this time please be patient. Things should go back to normal at least after 8am.

The all-new SpamDrain is here!
We have now launched a brand new version SpamDrain. It is based on the same great technology as before but it has a new look and it is super easy to use.

We want the world hear the great news and try the new app. We have therefore decided to hold a competition here on Facebook. If 1000 persons or more like us before the end of May we will give an iPad 2 with WiFi + 3G to the person who is best at guessing how many spam we catch this month.

You can guess as many times as you like and we will be giving some clues here on the wall.

Lets stop that spam!

Win your spam free iPad 2.

Yesterday we made some updates which hopefully will continue to improve the experience of SpamDrain. We added the possibility to report or retrieve directly in the message lists (Archive and Report), so you do not need to click the message in order to report it. The Report button appears once you hover over the row. Note that you will not need to confirm the reporting so before you click, be sure you really wish to report it as spam.

We also added the hover feature in other lists, so actions appears once you move your mouse over the row. In the filtered address lists, for example, you will now see the Delete icon and the new Pause icon when moving the mouse over the row. Pause filtering is a new feature we have added to give you more control over your SpamDrain account.

Clicking the Pause button will pause the filtering for this address. Once paused, SpamDrain will stop accessing your e-mail account. If you are using domain filtering, SpamDrain will simply let everything through for the paused address.

Once paused, a Play icon is displayed instead which once clicked will start the filtering again.

This pause feature is useful if you have problem with your e-mail access and want to see if SpamDrain is locking your mailbox or if you simply wish to go back to the good old times when tons of spam reached your inbox

We have also made some minor improvements in the login and sign up user interface.

The next few weeks we will continue working with minor improvements and adding help documentation where needed.

Feel free to comment the changes we made recently. Your opinion is the most valuable we have!

We have had issues with the log in using our app for iOS devices since the updates we made yesterday. They should now have been resolved. We regret the inconvenience.

The last couple of months we have been working on improving the webapp. The goal has been to make it easier to get started with SpamDrain and making it even more easier to use than before.

Today we finally made the first step launching the a new SpamDrain. We will be making quite a few more improvements the coming months. Please feel free to give us feedback!

With the release today, we also introduce two levels of SpamDrain: SpamDrain and SpamDrain+. Please read more on our website:

spamdrain.net

We are currently performing a major update of the SpamDrain web. Please stay tunes for everything to fall in place.

There will be some maintanance work on network infrastructure in one of the SpamDrain data centers the coming two nights (CET time):

Wednesday 03/16/2011 between 0:30am and 6:00am CET (UTC/GMT +1 hour)

Thursday 03/17/2011 between 0:30am and 6:00am CET (UTC/GMT +1 hour)

This should not affect SpamDrain as redundant systems will maintain normal service during this time. Should you still experience problems during this time please be patient. Things should go back to normal at least after 8am.

Our support will be closed during the holidays and re-opens again January 10 2011. Phone support will be closed and we will only answer urgent support cases via e-mail.

We wish you all a
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This week the charity event Musikhjälpen is being held in Malmö, Sweden. Swedish Radio and Swedish Television run the event and raise money for children’s rights under the parole “Children are not for sale”.

SpamDrain has decided to donate 1 öre (0,01 SEK) for each spam we block during the week of the event. A normal week we block about 700 000 spam.

Amount to be donated (now final):

counter will stop at 2010-12-19 when Musikhjälpen ends.

Remember, children are not for sale!

More info: www.musikhjalpen.se (Swedish).

We are proud to announce that SpamDrain for Android 1.1 now is available in Market. Go to Market and search for spamdrain in your phone or simply wait for the automatic notification in Android.
With this new version you will now be able to access your filtered messages.

New features in 1.1:

• View archive which contains blocked messages.
• Deliver blocked messages to inbox.
• View filtered but not blocked messages.
• Report missed spam.
• Better support for different screen sizes.

What are you waiting for – go to Market and upgrade!

Feel free to rate us and write an excellent review.
If you find a bug, tell us instead and we will fix it .

Some screen shots:

Our support will be closed for the summer holidays starting at July 19 2010 and re-opens again August  16 2010. We will answer your e-mails as usual during the working days, but the phone support will be closed.

Have a nice summer!

Please note that due to Midsummer’s holiday in Sweden, SpamDrain support will be closed on Friday 25 June and will open again on Monday 28 June, 9 am CET.

The last days we have seen a massive spam attack claiming that Angelina Jolie has invited you to Facebook. As usual the e-mail is well formed and appears to be a normal Facebook e-mail. However, instead they are linking to sites containing viruses or selling certain medications. The spammer sending these spam is currently the largest spammer according to Spamhaus and they have hundreds of domains registered. They are using bot nets and Chinese web hosting for their web site.

We are also seeing a lot of Twitter spam e-mails. These messages claiming someone was trying to steal your Twitter account password. To fix that you it say that you should open the attach file, which obviously is a virus. (Just in case you don’t get this, you should NOT open that file if you receive one of these messages ). My guess is that the virus is yet another trojan converting your computer to a spam sending machine.

So, the trend is pretty clear: spammers also try to use social media – or at least the names of well known social media services like Facebook and Twitter.

From time to time we see that spammers tend to copy e-mail layouts and content from legitimate companies. We have reported about the Twitter spam messages as one example. Now, Facebook is the target in a new spam attack. The messages say that the recipient has received a message from Facebook with important information. Of course, this isn’t true.

Spam message claming "Important information" from Facebook

The message looks just like the original Facebook messages. When clicking the link that appear to go to Facebook the user is instead sent to a web shop with fake pills other not unwanted products from “The Canadian Pharmacy”.

Classical "pharmacy" site selling fake Viagra, Cializ and other pills

Normally these sites is located on different domains that eventually get blocked by content filters in browsers and proxy servers after a while. When this happens they move the site to a new domain names and send out new spam messages. And how do SpamDrain handle these messages? Sign up and try for your self

We are currently experiencing network disturbances at our supplier. We are investigating the cause of these problems and hope they will be resolved soon.

Update: Systems are now up and running again. There may still be some disturbances the next hours. We have talked to our supplier and they were having hardware problems which caused interruptions in several parts of their network. They have now replaced necessary hardware to prevent more problems.
We apologize the inconvenience and would also like to point out that we are now entering a new phase in testing our new servers. They will increase stability and robustness and we hope to switch to the new servers really soon.

Maybe  you have seen the spam messages that looks just like a normal update from Twitter? The design and texts are identical to the Twitter original, informing you that you have 3 new messages or that someone has started to follow you. However, when you click the link that appears to go to Twitter, you end up at some drug store that sells these famous blue pills – or at least a cheap copy of them. Continue reading “Spam appearing like Twitter e-mail updates” »

Lately we have been working hard on handling the recent growth we have had. As you probably have noticed we have had some stability problems and we apologize for that. The last weeks we have made some changes to our infrastructure and started to migrate to new servers. This work will increase performance and provide better fail over than before. We hope this work will be finished within the next 2 – 3 weeks. We’re expecting to carry out the remaining changes without any disruptions to the service.

As a necessary step we have also moved some of our system to the cloud. This will improve the performance of our database servers and will also let us handle backups more efficiently.

In parallel with this work we have also worked on making minor changes to improve the experience of the overall service, such as improving your SpamDrain reports, adding support for payments in USD and support for payments through Paypal. We have also updated our price lists so they are easier to read. The next step on the web site is to make the sign up and on boarding as easy as in our mobile applications. That will be exciting work and hopefully we will be able to help even more people to get rid of annoying and time consuming spam messages.

Until next time – we wish you e-mail peace of mind and hope that you continue reporting your spam to us. That’s what makes the SpamDrain service so fantastic!

As a result of the success with our iPhone application we have now released our first version of SpamDrain for Android phones. As for the iPhone application, the Android version gives users the opportunity to sign up for SpamDrain and get started with the filtering of their e-mail.

The application is free and can be used by anyone with a SpamDrain account as well to view some statistics of your account and basic information about your subscription.

SpamDrain iPhone Application is now available in App Store. Please give us feedback what you would like to see in the application.

The application enables iPhone users to easily sign up to SpamDrain and get the spam filtering started. When logged on to the application you see statistics for your account and some basic information about your subscription. We hope to add more value to the application during 2010.

Our support will be closed during the holidays and re-opens again January 11 2010. We will answer your e-mails as usual during the working days, but the phone support will be closed.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

As we earlier reported virus levels have been rather higher than normal lately, but this now seem to have changed. We now see that virus level is back below 1 % which is more normal. Furthermore the dominating viruses aren’t actually viruses but phishing attempts. Continue reading “Virus and spam levels back to normal again” »

Have you experienced that spam messages are sent from your address? I can guarantee you that you’re not alone. This happens to all of us. The reason is that the protocol used for sending e-mail, SMTP, is a fairly simple protocol designed in the very beginning of the internet’s history. Anyone may basically put any e-mail address in the From field when sending a message. Spammers use this a lot to make it appear like a friend or a colleague is sending you an important message. Continue reading “Google accounts sending spam to contacts in address book” »

The last 5-6 weeks we have seen an increase of viruses blocked by the SpamDrain filter. The virus proportion has raised to levels around 2 – 3 %. This doesn’t sound much but compare this 0.2 -1 % for previous weeks. Two per cent corresponds to 15,000 viruses per week for our customers only. Since the spam proportion is around 80 % it means that for every tenth valid message there is a virus e-mail. Imagine the damage all these viruses could have made. Continue reading “One e-mail virus for every tenth valid message” »

Lately we’ve been working on a new front page along with new pages describing the SpamDrain service. Our goal is to give you as a visitor a quick overview of the service and its benefits. Continue reading “Fresh spam statistics – now on the front page” »

SpamDrain now has a Fan-site on Facebook:

Feel free to become a fan to be updated, join the discussions or just tell us how much you love SpamDrain .

SpamDrain now has a Fan-site on Facebook:

Feel free to become a fan to be updated, join the discussions or just tell us how much you love SpamDrain .

We have added the possibility for SpamDrain users to turn off the DNS blacklist filter which currently blocks messages sent from known spam servers. Why would you want to do that, you might wonder? (…or you just wonder What is DNS blacklisting ). Continue reading “DNS blacklisting can now be turned off” »

IDG skriver:

Alla infekterade Teliakunder måste kopplas bort från nätet eller få sina datorer rensade innan Microsoft tar bort spärren, enligt Microsofts Martin Tiveus.

Läs hela nyheten hos IDG

IDG skriver:

Telias servrar har svartlistats för utskick av skräppost.

Läs hela nyheten hos IDG

IDG skriver:

Twitter fungerade trögt i tisdags på grund av alla skräpmeddelanden som belastade systemet, enligt F-secure.

Läs hela nyheten hos IDG

Just nu pågår en phishingattack mot Comhem-kunder. Upplägget bygger på att Comhem haft problem med sin databas och behöver nu hjälp att återskapa den. Naturligtvis är det användarna som måste rycka in och bistå med namn, användarnamn och lösenord. Mejlet är skrivet på mycket dålig svenska eftersom man använt något automatöversättningsprogram. Förövarna varnar mottagaren att om man inte svarar inom sju dagar kommer all kontoinformation gå förlorad. Frågan är om någon går på dettta? Man kan också fråga sig vad en “direktör för andra kvartalet” gör – som mejlet är signerat med?

Med inloggningsuppgifter kan förövarna exempelvis skapa nya e-postkonton som kan användas för att skicka ut spam eller virus. De kan också skapa nya hemsidor som kan användas för att sprida virus eller länka till spammarnas försäljningssidor.

Mejen verkar vara skickade från kapade datorer i Brasilen och innehåller följande text:

Bäste Comhem.se konto Användare,

Vi stötte på ett problem med vår databas och en hel del poster förlorade vi återupprätta vår databas så att vi hjälpa dig bättre. Din Comhem.se Kontouppgifter krävs för att lagra i vår databas för att hålla kontot aktivt. Underlåtenhet att göra detta kommer att förlora hans eller hennes konto permanently.To uppdatera och ge oss möjlighet att återställa ditt konto detaljer i vår databas för att hålla kontot aktivt måste du ge oss information nedan
Urgently.Click svaret knappen för att ange information nedan.

Bekräfta din e-Identity Nedan:
Förnamn ………..
Efternamn: ………..
Användarnamn: ………. .
Lösenord: ………..
Hemland …….

Se till att information ovan är korrekt så att vi återställa dina kontouppgifter, detta kommer att förhindra att ditt konto från avbryta eller closing.Users har ofta berättat för oss att ju mer de använder Comhem.se Service, desto mer upptäcker de dess fördelar. Vi fortsätter att arbeta för att göra Comhem.se bästa e-posttjänst som finns, och vi uppskattar att du hänger med oss.

Observera: Dina uppgifter kommer inte att delas.

Varning! Konto ägare som underlåter att uppdatera hans eller hennes konto för att få detta meddelande kan lösa hans eller hennes konto. inom sju dagar efter mottagandet av denna varning kommer att förlora hans eller hennes konto permanently.Thank för att du använder Comhem.se Varning Kod:cohm5468.Comhem.se
Tack. “Comhem.se Team”
Engr. Jill Lederman
DIREKTÖR FÖR 2: a kvartalet UPPGRADERA

IDG skriver:

Efter att webbhotellet McColo stängde ned för ett par veckor sedan minskade den globala spamtrafiken med uppemot 70 procent. Nu har ett av de skräppostande botnäten öppnat upp igen och trafiken närmar sig åter tidigare nivåer.

Läs hela nyheten hos IDG

IDG skriver:

Teliasoneras mailservrar har svartlistats som förmedlare av skräppost, vilket gör att kunders e-post kan stoppas i filter.

Läs hela nyheten hos IDG

IDG skriver:

Antalet skräpmejl i världen minskade med 66 procent när den kaliforniska operatören kopplades bort.

Läs hela nyheten hos IDG

IDG skriver:

Forskare varnar för att nästa stora säkerhetshot inte är riktat mot persondatorer utan mobiltelefoner.

Läs hela nyheten hos IDG

IDG skriver:

Få är de personer som kan säga att de inte har fått ägna tid åt utrensning av oönskad reklam eller liknande budskap i sin e-postlåda.

Läs hela nyheten hos IDG

SpamDrain lanserar nu webbmejlfiltrering av POP3- och IMAP-konton. Det innebär att användaren får spam- och virusfiltrering även i sin vanliga webbmejl. Man behöver inte byta webbmejl utan fortsätter att använda sin leverantörs webbmejl precis som vanligt.

Sedan tidigare har SpamDrain-användare som filtrerar hela sin domän redan fått filtrering av webbmejl eftersom SpamDrain då stoppar spam och virus innan de levereras till användarens e-postserver. Om man däremot använder POP3 eller IMAP så sker filtreringen i det ögonblick användaren kopplar upp till SpamDrain via sin dator eller mobil. När man läser sin e-post i webbmejlen har man således inte fått någon filtrering.

Den nya webbmejlfiltreringen innebär att SpamDrain kommer fortsätta filtrera användarens mejl med jämna mellanrum även då användaren inte kopplar upp sig till SpamDrain. SpamDrain ställer själv automatiskt in intervallet beroende på om användaren själv ligger och hämtar sin e-post.

Typiskt är att man kontinuerligt kontrollerar sin e-post på kontorstid. Då finns det ingen anledning för SpamDrain att i bakgrunden filtrera mejlen. Det SpamDrain istället gör är att känna av att användaren inte hämtat sin mejl på ett tag och påbörjar då bakgrundsfiltreringen.

Användaren behöver fortfarande inte uppge något lösenord till sitt e-postkonto på SpamDrains sajt. Istället sparas lösenordet automatiskt första gången användaren hämtar sin e-post via sitt e-postprogram. Lösenordet krypteras och lagras säkert hos SpamDrain. Om användaren byter lösenord på sitt konto kommer SpamDrain automatiskt att uppdatera det lagrade lösenordet nästa gång inloggning sker med e-postprogrammet.

Användaren väljer själv om man vill aktivera webbmejlfiltrering eller inte. När man skapar ett nytt konto kommer det vara ifyllt som standard, men befintliga användare måste själva gå in och aktivera funktionen.

Användaren kan fortfarande använda sitt vanliga e-postprogram tillsammans med webbmejlfiltreringen. SpamDrain kommer då se till att “vanliga” inloggningar till servern inte blockeras och automatiskt öka intervallet om SpamDrain märker att användaren redan ligger och kontrollerar sina mejl kontinuerligt.

När exempelvis användaren lämnar kontoret eller stänger av sitt e-postprogram kommer SpamDrain märka att man inte loggat in på ett tag och därefter automatiskt börja filtrera e-posten i bakgrunden.

Webbmejlfiltreringen är ett naturligt steg för att våra användare ska få lugn och ro i alla inkorgar de använder.

Enligt en undersökning från Halon Security kostar sex-spam företaget 120 kr per månad och anställd i förlorad arbetstid. Lägg därtill alla andra spam och eventuella virus och trojaner som kan komma in till följd av för mycket skräppost. Även om man ska ta sådana här studier med en stor nypa salt (!) så kan man inte låta bli att räkna fram vad en typisk SpamDrain-kund sparar genom att använda SpamDrain:

Ett företag med 10 e-postkonto som filtreras av SpamDrain kostar 1 870 kr/år. Enligt Halon Security skulle det kostat företaget 120 kr x 12 mån x 10 anställda = 14 400 kr/år. Med SpamDrain sparar alltså ett företag med 10 avändare 12 530 kr/år. Ett resultat att ta med en gnutta salt . Förmodligen sparar man betydligt mer än så pga produktivare personal, mindre driftsproblem etc.

Alla priser exklusive moms.

Läs mer på IDG.

IDG skriver:

Genom e-post lyckade spammarna lura till sig lösenord för fyra anställda på Otago-universitetet i Nya Zeeland. Förutom att det drabbar universitetets rykte hamnade universitetet på svarta listan hos många operatörer.

Läs hela nyheten hos IDG

Antalet spam som skickats har minskat med 40% andra kvartalet i år enligt en artikel från IDG. Statistiken kommer från Secure Computing som även konstaterat att antalet zombier ökar långsammare än 2007. Men faktum är att det fortfarande ökar, vilket är anmärkningsvärt. Så länge antalet zombier blir fler, ökar också risken för spam-attacker, intrång och virusspridning.

Andelen spam SpamDrain filtrerat 2006-2008

I SpamDrains statistik ser vi inga tendenser till samma mönster som Secure Computing. I en sammanställning vi gjort idag ser vi istället att en minskning skedde i början av 2007 för att sedan öka igen fram till början av 2008. Sedan dess har andelen spam legat på en konstant nivå på ca 85 % under hela 2008. En rejäl minskning såg vi under juli månad, men statistiken under juli är mycket otillförlitlig med tanke på semestrar då många tar en paus från e-postläsandet.

Det återstår att se under hösten hur spammarna arbetar. Hittills kan man säga att de tycks ha rivstartat sensommaren med massiva trojanattacker som sprids i nyhetsliknande mejl, som vi tidigare rapporterat om.

Mer statistik från SpamDrain.

IDG skriver:

En amerikansk man dömdes igår till sju års fängelse för att under fyra års tid ha bedrivit organiserat nätfiske.

Läs hela nyheten hos IDG

For the past week a massive attack has infected PCs by tricking users into clicking links in fake messages from CNN.com. The attack has shown little sign of ending soon. The links in the spam mails go to sites which tell you to download the Adobe Flash player to watch a movie. What actually happens when you run this file is that a trojan is installed on your computer. The trojan adds your computer to a worldwide Botnet.

The email itself looks like a completely normal message from CNN.com and some of the links in the email also go to CNN. Right now there is a similar attack in progress, although this time MSNBC.com (NBC’s and MSN’s news site) is used to mask the attack. Spam has flowed in since around 11am on Tuesday. The sites, which the spam messages link to, are most likely hijacked ones and the site owners are probably not yet aware that their sites contain malicious code.

Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 now include filters to block sites like these. However, it normally takes several days before a hijacked site has been reported to these filters. Until then, no warning will be displayed when surfing to these sites.

Den senaste veckan har det pågått flera spam-attack där spammen ser ut som vanliga nyhetsbrev från CNN.com. Länkarna i mejlet går till sajter som säger att du ska ladda ner Adobe Flash för att titta på en film. Det som i själva verket händer är att en trojan installeras på datorn om du kör filen. Trojanen ser till att du ansluts till ett världsomfattande Botnet.

Mejlet i sig ser ut som ett helt vanligt mejl från CNN.com och vissa av länkarna i mejlet går också till CNN. Just nu pågår en likadan attack, fast denna gång är det MSNBC.com (NBC:s och MSN:s nyhetssajt) som används för att maskera attacken. Sajterna som det länkas till i mejlet är troligen kapade. Sajtägarna är många gånger ännu inte medvetna om att deras sajt innehåller skadlig kod av detta slag.

Den nuvarande attacken kommer från olika datorer runtom i världen och skickas även till användare både i Sverige och utländska mottagare.

Firefox och Internet Explorer 7 innehåller numera filter som ska blockera sajter av detta slag. Det tar dock normalt några dagar innan alla sajter är inrapporterade till dessa filter. Tills dess går det alltså att surfa till dessa sajter utan att få upp några varningar.

IDGs artikel om CNN-spammen

IDG skriver:

Flera användare av Apples e-posttjänst Mobileme har rapporterat att de fått e-postmeddelanden som utger sig komma från Apple där mottagaren uppmanas att uppdatera sitt kreditkortsnummer.

Läs hela nyheten hos IDG

IDG skriver:

Nätfiskarna är igång igen, denna gång riktar sig bovarna mot Swedbank. Men risken för att någon skulle gå på att Swedbanks vd är så dålig på svenska förefaller osannolikt.

Läs hela nyheten hos IDG

Nu verkar det som de flesta har slutat sin semester och börjat gå till jobbet. Vi ser i alla fall en drastisk ökning över antalet filtrerade meddelande från gårdagen. En normal vecka filtrerar SpamDrain ca 300 000 meddelanden där ca 80 % är spam och resten vanliga mejl. Under förra dygnet filtrerades över 160 000 meddelanden – alltså mer än hälften av en normal arbetsvecka. Under juli månad har antalet filtrerade meddelanden minskat i takt med att allt fler går på semester. Men nu verkar det som att de flesta har letat sig tillbaka från stranden till sina inkorgar.

Mer statistik

Som vi rapporterade i går ser vi nu många spam-meddelanden med anknytning till aktuella händelser. Dessa spam innehåller länkar till webbplatser som installerar en trojan som gör datorn till ett spam-sändande monster. På bloggen I got Spam? rapporterar man om att dessa webbplatser (som till exempel en fingerad Porntube-sajt som är den vuxna versionen av Youtube) hostas på ett antal hackade servrar. När man klickar på länken i spam meddelandet kommer man till den hackade sajten och ett popup-fönster visas som talar om man måste installera en Active-X-kontroll för att man ska kunna titta på filmerna. Det som då händer är att en trojan installeras som lägger till din dator till Storm Worm botnet vilket gör det möljigt för hackare att komma åt din dator för att exempelvis skicka ut spam, virus eller andra bedrägerier. Denna helg ansvarade detta botnet för att ha skickat över 8 miljoner skräppostmeddelanden på 24 timmar.

F-Secure rapporterar också om dessa spam på sin blogg.

As we reported yesterday we now see a lot of spam messages with subject lines related to current events. Many of these spam messages contain links to sites that installs a trojan which makes your computer to a spam sending monster. The blog I got Spam? reports that the sites (for example a bogus Porntube which is the adult version of Youtube) is hosted on a number of hacked servers. When someone clicks on the link a pop-up is displayed, telling the user to install an Active-X control which installs the trojan that welcomes you to the Storm Worm botnet. This weekend this botnet was responsible for sending over 8 million spam messages in 24 hours.

F-secure also reports about these spam messages on their blog.

The fact that spammers are trying to take advantage of our curiosity to get us to read their incredible offerings is perhaps nothing new. But recently, we have noted that spammers use gossip to get the recepient interested. The contents of the spam is approximately the same as usual. Some text and a link to a site that sells Viagra, sex toys, watches or other items. In the subject line, however, there is something that attract our curiosity. For example, that Britney is involved in a new scandal, or that oil prices are on the way down. Britney and the American presidential candidates are by the way quite popular as the subject of this type of spam. They all have in common that they all usually relates to a current event.

Some examples:
Oil prices starting to DROP
Obama endorses herbal supplements
Tim Russert’s six scandal exposed at funeral
Nokia unveils revolutionary new phone design
Britney found hanged in locker room
Britney lingerie shoot
Britney in drug scandal in saint tropez
Portugal regrets not bringing herbal supplements

Spammers hope that we are more interested in the Britneys latest adventure than how their own fantastic products can help us.

Att spammarna försöker utnyttja vår nyfikenhet för att få oss att läsa deras otroliga erbjudanden är kanske inget nytt. Men på sista tiden har vi noterat att man utnyttjar skvallerpressen för att få mottagaren att bli intresserad. Innehållet i spammen är ungefär som vanligt. Lite text och en länk till en sida som säljer viagra, sexhjälpmedel, klockor eller dylikt. I ämnesraden däremot står det något som ska locka vår nyfikenhet. Exempelvis att Britney är inblandad i en ny skandal eller att oljepriserna är på väg ner. Britney och de amerikanska presidentkandidaterna är föresten ganska populära som ämnesrad i denna typen av spam. Gemensamt är att det oftast knyter an till någon aktuell händelse.

Några exempel:
Oil prices starting to DROP
Obama endorses herbal supplements
Tim Russert’s sex scandal exposed at funeral
Nokia unveils revolutionary new phone design
Britney found hanged in locker room
Britney lingerie shoot
Britney in drug scandal in saint tropez
Portugal regrets not bringing herbal supplements

Spammarna hoppas alltså att vi är mer intresserade av Britneys senaste äventyr än hur deras egna fantastiska produkter kan hjälpa oss.

CBC News reports och IDG rapporterar att polisen i Quebec har knäckt en hackarnätverk som riktat in sig på oskyddade hemdatorer runt om i världen. Dessa så kallade botnets används ofta för att genomföra andra hackaratacker mot datorer och servrar. Botnets används även för att skicka ut miljontals spam-meddelanden. Så frågan är om detta gripandet kommer att minska spam-trafiken i världen? Continue reading “Gripande av botnätägare kan minska mängden spam” »

CBC News reports that the Quebec provincial police have dismantled a computer hacking network that targeted unprotected personal computers around the world. These so called botnets are commonly used to perform hacking attacks against other computers and servers. Botnets are also widely used as senders of millions and millions of spam messages. So will this arrest decrease the spam traffic? Continue reading “Arrest of botnet owners may reduce spam traffic” »

Har du märkt att du nu kan söka bland e-postkonton och användare? Detta gör det enklare att hitta för er medlemmar som har många konton upplagda. Sökningen har vi valt att göra så enkel som möjligt varför du endast har ett textfält att skriva in din sökning i. Själva sökningen sker sedan automatiskt bland användare, e-postadress, användarnamn, servernamn etc. Berätta gärna vad du tycker om detta! Vi har även ändrat e-postkontolistan för att få den mer överskådlig.

Samtidigt med denna förbättring har vi även passat på att rätta till diverse småfel. Vi hanterar numera bounces av meddelande för vår domäntjänster på ett bättre sätt. Nu studsar meddelanden med ogiltig mottagare direkt vid leverans istället för att köas upp på våra servrar.

Vi vill gärna att ni medlemmar fortsätter att komma med synpunkter på förbättringar. På så sätt kan vi fortsätta att leverera en superbra tjänst med klockren filtrering .

The problem with VAT number validation for French VAT numbers are now fixed. All valid French VAT numbers should now be validated correctly.

Due to problems with the statistics engine during Wednesday 23/1 and Thursday 24/2, the statistics in report messages of Thursday is summarized incorrectly for some of our members. We apologize for any inconvenience and the problem should be solved in the reports of Friday.

Under onsdagen 23/1 och torsdagen 24/1 har vi haft problem med vår statistikmotor. Därför har statistiken summerats fel i rapportmejlen för vissa medlemmar. Vi beklagar detta och felet ska vara åtgärdat i fredagens rapporter.

I januarinumret av Allt om PC finns ett heluppslag om skräppost, vad man kan göra åt det samt hur framtiden ser ut. Artikeln baseras delvis på en intervju med Niklas Therning från SpamDrain. Niklas delar med sig av tips för att minska spamfloden i inkorgen. Han nämner också att det sannolikt kommer bli mer spam i framtiden. Han tror att internetbaserade sociala nätverk såsom Facebook, kan vara nästa guldgruva för spammare.

“Här finns ju en oerhörd mängd information om en massa människor och hur de känner varandra. Vi lär se mindre seriösa tjänster som säljer information till spammare” säger han.

“Spam via snabbmeddelandetjänster (MSN, Yahoo, AIM) och IP-telefoni kommer också att bli vanligare i framöver. Kanske blir det så att din röstbrevlåda är full av “röst-spam” i framtiden?”, fortsätter Niklas.

Allt om PC finns att köpa i de flesta butiker som säljer tidningar.

Spam och phishingmejl innehåller olika knep för att dölja den verkliga länken till den sajt där användaren ska luras på koder eller köpa diverse piller och mediciner. Den senaste i raden av sådana knep är att konstruera en länk som i själva verket är en sökning på Goggle. Länken tar användaren direkt till första sökträffen som är förövarens sajt. Continue reading “Spammare gömmer sig bakom Googles Jag-har-tur-knapp” »