Re: Sender Spoofing via SMTP

From: FocusHacks (focushacks_at_gmail.com)
Date: 11/04/05

  • Next message: at: "Symantec/Norton Real-Time Antivirus Considered Harmful on Exchange Servers"
    Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 09:38:39 -0600
    To: "brandon.steili@gmail.com" <brandon.steili@gmail.com>
    
    

    You can prevent it from happening by people using your own SMTP
    servers as a relay by disallowing relays.

    If you do not want incoming mail that has been relayed, the best bet
    is to use one of the mail relay blackhole lists. One such list is
    http://www.mail-abuse.com/

    What you get: A list of known IP Addresses that allow open relay (and
    thus, proliferation of spam)

    The Good: When you block these IP addresses, you no longer receive
    mail via any known open relays. Some spam squeaks past via open
    relays that haven't been discovered but they do not last long.

    The Bad: If someone that you want to be able to communicate with
    happens to be using a black-holed provider, you won't get the
    communication. Also, end users will typically have no idea that
    they've been blackholed unless your filtering solution has an
    auto-responder.

    The Ugly: A temporary misconfiguration and/or fresh install of the
    host OS can often lead to being blackholed. I switched plans with a
    dedicated hosting company, and got upgraded hardware and a fresh
    install of Linux with it. Within an hour (before I could get around
    to reconfiguring sendmail), I was blackholed and it took more than a
    day to clear up the issue with all the blackhole lists. There are a
    LOT of different lists that one must clear themselves from.
    Fortunately only 5 or 6 had flagged me. See http://rbls.org/

    On 3 Nov 2005 15:56:23 -0000, brandon.steili@gmail.com
    <brandon.steili@gmail.com> wrote:
    > Hi List,
    >
    > I know this is a common issue that does not seem to be well addressed, but I was hoping you folks could give some suggestions. (preferably for Exchange 2003)
    >
    > If I telnet to a system on the internet and perform the following:
    >
    > telnet target 25
    > EHLO (assuming Exchange)
    > MAIL FROM: someone
    > RCPT TO: someone_else@TargetDomain.com
    > DATA ....
    >
    > The server will happily forward my mail to the internal mailbox without validating anything. I did not have to authenticate, I did not even have to provide a real sender on the system, I could make one up. Again, I know this is a common issue, the question is how can I prevent this from happening?
    >
    > With the proliferation of social engineers / phishers, etc I would like to try and find a way to prevent this, not because it is a big problem but because it might become a big problem.
    >
    > Obviously user training can only go so far and our clients are not going to think twice if they recieve an email that appears to be from a company exec...
    >
    > Thanks!
    >

    --
    http://www.FocusHacks.com - The Ford Focus Modification Site!
    

  • Next message: at: "Symantec/Norton Real-Time Antivirus Considered Harmful on Exchange Servers"

    Relevant Pages

    • RE: Sender Spoofing via SMTP
      ... Try adding a spf (sender privacy framework) entry in your DNS servers. ... definitely lock down the ability to be used as a relay. ... day to clear up the issue with all the blackhole lists. ...
      (Security-Basics)
    • Re: IS MY SERVER A RELAY?
      ... Most Exchange users mostly MAPI clients so the need to relay is generally ... into programs for the smtp server. ... this lists the same two accounts described above. ...
      (microsoft.public.exchange.admin)
    • RE: Sender Spoofing via SMTP
      ... Try adding a spf entry in your DNS servers. ... definitely lock down the ability to be used as a relay. ... day to clear up the issue with all the blackhole lists. ...
      (Security-Basics)
    • Re: IS MY SERVER A RELAY?
      ... Servers's whose IP address is not in our relay ... exchange server and send mail that way. ... Our users are using authentication to send messages. ... this lists the same two accounts described above. ...
      (microsoft.public.exchange.admin)
    • Re: SBS 2003 open relay...
      ... what are you seeing that makes you think you are an open relay. ... From email posted to sbs2k Yahoo Group by Charles Anthe, ... These defaults are different than Exchange 2003 Server defaults (which ...
      (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)