tired of spam? the solution is mailwasher
TRANSCRIPT
Tired of Spam? The solution is MailWasher
www.firetrust.com
What is significant about the date 1978?
The arrival of spam!
• May 1st, 1978 the first spam was sent by a DEC marketing rep to advertise their new computer.
• The recipients, like today, were not happy!
Spam is easy to block
• It’s the mid 1990’s and there’s a bit of spam around. It’s easy to block
• Block the sender.
If the From field contains "[email protected]" then mark the message as mail to be deleted.
Damn, email can be spoofed
• They’re changing the email address the spam comes from.
• Ok, lets set up a filter and block the words they’re using
"Casino Spam","Casino Spam",16711680,OR,Delete,Subject,contains,"YOU play we
PAY",Subject,contains,Casino,Body,containsRE,"<a\ href=(3d)?""http://.*casino.+"">.*Casino",Body,containsRE,"Big\ Dollars?\
Casino",Body,contains,jackpot,Subject,contains,"Sign up & collect $500!",Body,contains,"Sign up & collect
$500!",Body,contains,poker,Body,containsRE,"casino\ (games|members)",Body,contains,"gambling from home"
Hmm, filters don’t always work
• And I’m fed up with them blocking my good email.
• Lets block the source of the spam. Their IP address!
216.218.193.162/32 is listed on the Spamhaus Block List (SBL)
15-Dec-2001 22:00 GMT | SR08
myworld17.myworldresults.com
ThePlaceToBeAt.com. 3600 IN MX 10 mail9.mydomainwebhost.com.
mail9.mydomainwebhost.com. 3600 IN A 66.11.233.2
ThePlaceToBeAt.com. 172800 IN NS ns1.mydomainwebhost.com.
ThePlaceToBeAt.com. 172800 IN NS ns2.mydomainwebhost.com.
ThePlaceToBeAt.com. 172800 IN NS ns3.mydomainwebhost.com.
That didn’t work for long
• Now they’re sending spam through millions of people’s compromised computers. I can’t block everyone’s computers!
• Lets try some fancy mathematical statistics to teach my computer the difference between spam and legitimate email.
That was ok for a while
• But they’re still sneaking through and trying to look like my legitimate email.
• Hmm, this is really tricky to block now
Now my spam looks unreadable
• There’s so much gibberish in each spam email. How do people read this?
• And, they’re still coming through
This looks ok, its from my bank
• Yep, positive this looks ok. The site even looks genuine
http://www.bankofamerica.com/nationsfunds/nf2/leaving.cfm?destination=http://www.bankofamerica.com/nationsfunds/nf2/leaving.cfm?destination=%22%3e%3c%53...(etc.)
Images!?
• Now my filters and every other blocking thing doesn’t work because my spam comes through as images now.
PDF’s and Excel spreadsheets too!
Now it’s just a link in the email
• Ohh, it’s a google link. Must be ok!
• Hmm, its sends me straight to the spammy website
• Blended spam on the rise
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=[some query unique to the site]&btnI=I=Im+Feeling+Lucky
It’s best to use your brain!
• And this is where MailWasher proves its worth. Spam filters still make too many mistakes at filtering spam – false positives and false negatives.
• With Mailwasher, you are in control and spam never need get to your computer.
Features
• MailWasher allows you to preview all aspects of your email before it gets to your computer.
• Ultimately you decide if you want to keep email or delete it, not spam filters.
• Preview all your email in your accounts in one convenient place.
• Gives you control!
How MailWasher works (video)
Setup Wizard
The main screen
Preview Screen
Preview Screen - attachments
Preview - headers
Preview - Links
Preview – Phishing emails
• View the actual link in the email (nyg2612.com is the actual domain here)
Spam tools
Friends list
Blacklist
Filters
Filters
Filter Side Bar
• Friends list, Blacklist and Filters all available from the optional Filter Side Bar
Learning Filters
• Teach MailWasher with the Action column
Learning Filters (video)
Learning Filters
Learning Filters
Learning Filters
First Alert!
First Alert!
RBL’s
Virus Warnings
Auto delete spam
Recycle Bin
Recycle Bin
Bouncing email
• Bounce email back to spammers
Report spam to FirstAlert!
• Report spam so others do not get the same spam
Statistics
• View stats all about the spam you get!
Summary
• MailWasher allows you to preview all aspects of your email before it gets to your computer.
• You ultimately decide if you want to keep email or delete it, not spam filters.
• Preview all your email in your accounts in one convenient place.
• Gives you control!
A very brief history of Mailwasher
Nick Bolton from New Zealand designed Mailwasher after being sick of spam.
He found a couple of programs which didn’t really work well alone, but together they would be great.
One was an email checker which showed your email on the server, the other had some filters.
A very brief history of Mailwasher
• MailWasher version 1.0 was released August 18th 2001 after 6 months of development. It had lots of bugs :( it was free though and soon got mentioned on a couple of popular email lists with over 200,000 subscribers each.
• Then things got busy!
MailWasher for business
• If you run your own mailserver…
MailWasher Server
• Free open source antispam for business
Coming this year…
Encrypt (beta)
• Finally, easy to use, secure email encryption
• Just send email like you normally do
• If recipient is using ENCRYPT, then your emails to them will always be encrypted. If they are not using ENCRYPT, your emails will be sent as plain text.
Sitehound
• Early warning tool
Sitehound
• Early warning system – part 2
Sitehound
• Preview and read pages quickly
Mobile Data Now (beta)
• Use SMS, email or instant messaging to access databases and web services
• www.mobiledatanow.com
Thank you!
If you need any help with MailWasher Pro, just contact us [email protected]
We hope you enjoy the conference and your free copy of MailWasher Pro
www.firetrust.com