Title: Spam OK, Im Full Already
1Spam!OK, Im Full Already
- Why do we get so much
- How do they find us
- How can we slow it down
Mac Carey Director of Technology Systems Contra
Costa County Office of Education
2What is spam?
- Monty Python gets into the act
- Hormel SPAM
- Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE)
Contra Costa County Office of Education
3How do spammers find us?
- Chat Rooms
- Instant Messaging
- Cookies and Spyware
- Email Harvesting Robots
- Brute Attacks on your Mail Server
Contra Costa County Office of Education
4Who are the spammers?
- Legitimate Advertisers
- Unscrupulous Opportunists
- Major Companies provide funding
- Major ISPs tolerate them
Contra Costa County Office of Education
5How to Identify the Origin of a Spam Message
- Look at the complete HEADER of an incoming spam
message - Outlook right click on message in inbox and go
to properties - Eudora Click on Blah Blah icon
- Use NS Lookup to analyze the domain or IP address
- Open Relays
Contra Costa County Office of Education
6Spy-Ware
- Cookies, Ad-Ware and other Spy-Ware propagate
spam - Sometimes just opening email or a web page will
download little applets on your workstation - These applets may upload info from your computer
Contra Costa County Office of Education
7How spammers hide their tracks
- One way is use of spy-bots to search Internet for
open mail relays - Spam looks like it came from legitimate source.
- Network Managers should close these holes
Contra Costa County Office of Education
8Decreasing the spam you get
- Make sure your email address is not available to
be plucked off the Internet - Disguise e-mail address posted in a public
electronic place (example at domain dot com) - Post an image of your email address
- Exercise your choice on online forms.
- Use Multiple email addresses
Contra Costa County Office of Education
9Decreasing spam (cont.)
- Fighting SpamBots
- Besides email coding and images try using a
javascript to provide a mailto link spambots
cant use.
Contra Costa County Office of Education
10Decreasing spam (cont.)
- Filter
- Ask your network administrator or ISP provider if
they can filter spam before it gets to your
desktop - Use the filter your email client provides
Contra Costa County Office of Education
11Decreasing spam (cont.)
- How to respond to spam
- DONT
Contra Costa County Office of Education
12Stopping Spam at the Network (School/District)
Level
- Security Document
- Enterprise Spam Software
- Enterprise Spam Appliance
- Stricter the rules the greater chance of
legitimate email being blocked.
Contra Costa County Office of Education
13Types of Filtering
- Access Lists
- Real Time Black Hole Lists
- White Lists
- Reverse DNS Lookups
Contra Costa County Office of Education
14Types of Filtering (Cont)
- Signatures
- Heuristics
- Image Scanning
Contra Costa County Office of Education
15Types of Filtering (Cont)
- Header Analysis
- Bayesian Filtering and Content Searching
- Many solutions use one or a combination of all
three. The most efficient systems have some
intelligence built-in that learn filter patterns
and apply them to the filters. Â
Contra Costa County Office of Education
16Companies that have Network Spam Products
- McAffee Spam Assassin now out
- Lightspeed. http//www.lightspeedsystems.com/spam_
blocking.asp - Audience POLL of good spam software/appliances
you are using
Contra Costa County Office of Education
17Adware and Spy-ware Detectors and Cleaners
- Ad-Aware - a freeware ad-ware cleaner finds and
removes ad-ware and some spy-ware applets hidden
on your system. From LavaSoft. Available from
many download sites for free. - SpyBot Search and Destroy - This is a more
aggressive program that can clean and immunize
against spy-ware. Suggested for advanced users
only.
Contra Costa County Office of Education
18Procedures to handle SPAMand Blocked Email
- ? Public Relations (Getting Blamed for Spam)
- See Sample Email Complaint/Response
- ? Procedures to handle SPAM
- See Sample SPAM Procedure
- ? Procedures to handle Blocked Email
- See Sample Blocked Email Procedure
Contra Costa County Office of Education
19Internet Resources
- SPAM ABUSE. NET (http//spam.abuse.net) is a site
with the goal of promoting responsible net
commerce through fighting spam. - About Spam
- Help for Users
- Help for System Administrators
- FAQs
Contra Costa County Office of Education
20Internet Resources (cont.)
- Stop Spam FAQ
- http//www.mall-net.com/spamfaq.html
- List of Anti-Spam software
- http//gigenestuff.homestead.com/spamsoftware.html
- Free and Shareware Anti-Spam tools
- http//www.webattack.com/freeware/comm/fwspam.shtm
l - http//www.webattack.com/shareware/comm/swspam.sht
ml
Contra Costa County Office of Education
21Internet Resources (Cont)
- Foundations
- SpamCon Foundation
- http//www.spamcon.org/
- Coalition Against Unsolicited Email
- http//www.cauce.org/
- Email Abuse.org
- http//www.emailabuse.org
Contra Costa County Office of Education
22Questions ?
Contra Costa County Office of Education
23ThankYou
Mac Carey Email mcarey_at_cccoe.k12.ca.us
Contra Costa County Office of Education