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Increased Spam the last few days?

Adam1V
Grafter
Posts: 223
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Increased Spam the last few days?

Anyone else noticed a number of increased spam coming through the filters the last few days?
I've had an unusually large amount today.
I have switched off my F9 spam and decided to let Postini handle everything (as a trial to see how I get on), but technically this shouldnt affect anything as its all coming through the same servers?
16 REPLIES 16
ChrisL
Rising Star
Posts: 760
Thanks: 4
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎13-12-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

Quote from: Adam1V
I have switched off my F9 spam and decided to let Postini handle everything ...

Not sure what you mean by this, to be honest....  Are you now relying on edge-filtering only?
There have been teething problems with the new controls, which might suggest your problem is temporary. Can you post an example of the email headers from a recent spam? This would help people give sensible answers.
atb
Newbie
Posts: 9
Registered: ‎02-08-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

Quote from: Adam1V
Anyone else noticed a number of increased spam coming through the filters the last few days?
I've had an unusually large amount today.

Yes, far more since apparently a change was made around 4 Apr.  Suddenly much more spam got through, previously very little. Currently correct spam detection is only about 50% 
I drew attention to this problem via the "help assistant" but was basically fobbed off, being told that the default settings applied seemed, by feedback,  to be OK for most people.  Apparently my feedback was not relevant, eventhough I mentioned that the same issue had arisen at the same time for other PN customers I help out.
On request I sent 27 undetected blantant spams but got no useful feedback.  Having discovered that PN had changed something, without very obvious notification I looked into the new controls.  I've increased the "aggression" level from the default of 1 to 2, but it doesn't seem to have changed much.  I send all missed spam to the training - don't know if it helps anything, or how it's use interacts with the "aggression" setting.  All in all I (and my other contacts) have found a definite downturn in the spam protection since about 4 Apr!  ANd not very happy about with the support response either.
pierre_pierre
Grafter
Posts: 19,757
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

so far this month is 189 detected spam and 42 undetected plus some that are black holed by me, I keep the for a month just for the tally, in a separate area since PN clear out the spam folder after X days, thought to be 21 but not in my experience,
Adam1V
Grafter
Posts: 223
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

sorry, i didnt explain too well.
Since I was placed on the new Postini trials, I have been very pleased with the results, seeing literally only 1 or 2 spam emails a day (if that occasionally!).
The last few days its been more of 10-15 which is unusual.
I have let force9 deal with my postini configuration, i.e aggressive level/blocked addresses/white lists etc but a few days ago, I switched this off to let Postini handle everything which technically shouldnt be any different?
bobpullen
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 16,869
Thanks: 4,950
Fixes: 315
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

Quote from: Adam1V
I have let force9 deal with my postini configuration, i.e aggressive level/blocked addresses/white lists etc but a few days ago, I switched this off to let Postini handle everything which technically shouldnt be any different?

No it shouldn't as far as volumes are concerned.
@atb, I'll take a look at your account now to make sure the settings are as they should be.
Edit: OK, I've taken a look now and all settings seem to be OK. Have a look at the comments I've added to your open ticket.

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
If I've been helpful then please give thanks ⤵

Adam1V
Grafter
Posts: 223
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

we are deffo getting an increased amount of spam, very very obvious too.
On the plus side, postini has caught a couple thousand in a couple of weeks though.
anyone else finding it coming through?
deekay
Grafter
Posts: 209
Registered: ‎05-08-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

I've been away for the week 12 April to 19 April.
My emails were "up-to-date" when I went away.
I've just checked them and found that there are one thousand, three hundred and twenty seven spam messages waiting.
So I think that there is an increase in spam messages!
I have spent ages checking all the headers to see if there were any 'false positives'.
Will spam never decrease?
Keith.
Adam1V
Grafter
Posts: 223
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

are you referring to that many emails 'waiting to be downloaded' i.e they passed the postini filter?
I've now set my aggression to level 4, but there are tons of emails passing through the postini/f9 filter, something is certainly not right for me.
Initially when i was kicked onto the beta, it was amazing, almost 1 email a day, if that, now its 20-30, and i know other employees are the same.
iashton
Grafter
Posts: 62
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

I've been very pleased with Postini overall but have the impression more is getting through recently as reported in this thread.
What puzzles me is how some messages are flagged as spam but not actioned.
I've just had one with
X-pn-pstn: Spam 2
however it appeared in my inbox.
Should have been moved to my Spam folder with [-SPAM-] inserted into the Subject
Shouldn't it?

spraxyt
Resting Legend
Posts: 10,063
Thanks: 674
Fixes: 75
Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

Quote from: iashton
What puzzles me is how some messages are flagged as spam but not actioned.
I've just had one with
X-pn-pstn: Spam 2
however it appeared in my inbox.

If your settings still use the default aggression level of 1, only Spam 1 messages are moved to the Spam folder, so this one has been dealt with correctly. Had you used the enhancements recently introduced in the Manage my Mail tool (login required) to increase the aggression level to 2 that message would have been caught … but at the increased risk of genuine messages also being caught.
Ongoing refinement of spam filter performance mentioned in the Service Status post here - from which the following is a quote …
Quote
We are also continuing to analyse the performance of our spam filters with a view to refining the scoring mechanisms to make them as accurate as possible.

… - should improve the performance of PlusNet's spam tagging. (Note this is NOT connected with the accuracy of Postini scoring, that is Postini's job, helped by spam/not-spam reporting). The UserGroup (link) are helping with the analysis mentioned.
I believe the spam getting through to inboxes is increasing because of subtle changes in spam characteristics - it's what spammers do.
David
Adam1V
Grafter
Posts: 223
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

Quote
To: <adam.venn@mydomain>
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:30:59 +0100
X-Mailer: Microsoft CDO for Exchange 2000
X-pstn-levels:    (S: 0.00000/ 2.44193 CV:99.0000 )
X-pstn-settings: 1 (0.1500:0.1500) cv gt3 gt2 gt1
X-pstn-addresses: from <adam.venn@my domain> forward (user good) [17/1]
X-PN-Virus-Filtered: by PlusNet MXCore (v4.00)
Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message
X-PN-Spam-Filtered: by PlusNet MXCore (v4.00)

surely it should be blocked due to the low S score?
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Theres nothing subtle about that, its very obvious.
deekay
Grafter
Posts: 209
Registered: ‎05-08-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

Adam1V
Of the 1,327 spam messages waiting for me last Saturday, at a guess, about 60% were tagged as spam in the subject. The others were not and I had to manually mark them as spam. Then there were about 40 messages from friends or a mailing list I'm in.
I had to go through all of the subjects/senders in Mailwasher to check them.
I find that, if I get a number of identical spam messages from the same person and with the same subject, arriving as a block, some of them are tagged as spam and some are not.
When I switched on about half an hour ago, there were another 65 spam messages from the last 12 hours!!
Keith
jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
Thanks: 971
Fixes: 10
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

Quote from: Adam1V
Quote
To: <adam.venn@mydomain>
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:30:59 +0100
X-Mailer: Microsoft CDO for Exchange 2000
X-pstn-levels:    (S: 0.00000/ 2.44193 CV:99.0000 )
X-pstn-settings: 1 (0.1500:0.1500) cv gt3 gt2 gt1
X-pstn-addresses: from <adam.venn@my domain> forward (user good) [17/1]
X-PN-Virus-Filtered: by PlusNet MXCore (v4.00)
Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message
X-PN-Spam-Filtered: by PlusNet MXCore (v4.00)


I've highlighted the reason - the sender is whitelisted. But it should not have been picked up as spam if it was not sent via the PN relays - although I'm not sure if that test applies if it is not xxx@username.plus.com
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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Adam1V
Grafter
Posts: 223
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: Increased Spam the last few days?

god dammit Sad
they are using my own domain name as the senders list.