E-Mail Security

Organization Service
Open RBL Multi DNS Black Lists Lookup
Abuse.net Abuse.net Mail relay testing
dr. Jørgen Mash (moensted) drbcheck: DNS database BLs checker
MAPS Lists: RBL, DUL, RSS, OPS, NML MAPS Lists lookup
CBL - Composite Blocking List CBL IP address lookup
PSBL - Passive Spam Block List PSBL list query
SpamCop SpamCop - Blocking List lookup
MAPS Application Notes Open Relay: How Can I Fix the Problem?
RNP NewsGeneration - Brazil Anti-Spam Tools for Windows users

Spam - Unsolicited Junk E-mail

The two most common definitions of spam are "Unsolicited Bulk Email" and "Unsolicited Junk Email", mostly with commercial purpouse. The spam practice is basically tied to three factors: illegal and indiscriminated obtention of email addresses to create mailing lists; large scale (bulk) distribution of unsolicited email messages (for marketing, promotion, fraud etc.); and use of open mail relays for bulk email distribution.

Open mail relays are SMTP servers that permit third-party relay. These servers permit spammers to connect to them from anywhere in the world, usually from a modem connection, and then forward the spam to its intended victims.

Spam Black-Lists

Phishing Scam - Internet Frauds

Software Anti-Spam for Users and E-mail Clients

  • Ferramentas Anti-Spam para o usuário final em plataformas Windows [In Portuguese]
    Article and review by Jacomo Dimmit Boca Piccolini and Renata Cicilini Teixeira, Security Incidents Response Center (CAIS), National Education and Research Network (RNP) - Brazil. Published on RNP NewsGeneration Newsletter, August 26, 2003, volume 7, edition #4.
  • Spamotomy: Anti-spam Tools Search
    User and technical reviews of Desktop/Client Anti-spam Software. By Spamotomy.
  • K9 - Robin Keir's Email Spam Filtering
    K9 is an email filtering application that works in conjunction with your regular POP3 email program and automatically classifies incoming emails as spam (junk email) or non-spam without the need for maintaining dozens of rules or constant updates to be downloaded. It uses intelligent statistical analysis that can result in extremely high accuracy over time. K9 learns from its mistakes and becomes better and better at being able to identify spam. More importantly it learns to recognize what you consider to be spam.
    K9 is freeware, written by Robin Keir. K9 is for standard POP3 email accounts only. It does not directly support Hotmail, AOL or any other kind of webmail type systems, nor does it support SSL or secure authentication as used ny MSN.
  • MailWasher Free
    MailWasher is a powerful email checker with effective spam elimination. A safe way to stop unwanted viruses and emails before they get to your computer. It can bounce and delete unwanted emails, automatically checks SPAM blocking databases/lists. MailWasher runs on Win95/NT4 or greater, supports POP3, IMAP, Hotmail, MSN, AOL/Netscape. The free version enables only one e-mail account.
  • MailWasher Pro
    Enhanced, commercial version of MailWasher, by Firetrust.
  • SpamPal for Windows
    SpamPal is a mail classification program that can help separate your spam from the mail you really want to read. SpamPal is free software, by James Farmer.
  • EmC - Email Control
    EmC - email anti-spam and anti-virus for Win95/98/ME/2000/NT/XP. In English and Portuguese.
    EmC 5.0.
  • Save My Modem
    SaveMyModem is a anti-spam, mail-shaper, delete-on-server software. Open source software licensed under GPL.
    Features: portable (runs natively on Linux and Windows), plugin architecture (other mail filters/mail protocols can be easily added), complex rules with logic operators and extended regular expressions match, black list check for spammers, interactive mode (to test and improve your rules) and batch mode (if you trust your rules), UIDL database (avoid dupicates), APOP (secure pop3 authentication), configurable bandwidth usage (how many lines/bytes to download and check), bounce message option (simulate your mailbox is unavailable), multi-threaded (handles slow DNS/POP3 servers).
    SourceForge project: savemymodem.
  • POPFile
    POPFile is an automatic mail classification tool. It's free, open source, multi-platform and very cool. Languages: English, Norsk, Deutsch, Português do Brasil, Français, Dansk, Español, Korean, Japanese.
    Once properly set up and trained, POPFile will work in the background of your computer, scanning mail as it arrives and filing it however you wish. You can give it a simple job, like separating out junk e-mail, or a complicated one - like filing mail into a dozen folders. Think of it as a personal assistant for your inbox.
    POPFile is a Naïve Bayesian email proxy (not an email client) classifier, created by John Graham-Cumming. It was inspired by another project called Ifile. POPFile is written in Perl, so it is multi-platform as Perl also is. POPFile currently works with POP3 protocol, but IMAP support is under discussion. POPFile is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
    POPFile Documentation - Manual (English). POPFile Documentation Project: User Information - HOWTOs, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), Troubleshooting, Glossary; Advanced usage - Option Reference, Extensions, Experimental, Utility Scripts.
    Forums for POPFile: Help, HOWTO, Documentation, Source Code, UI, Extension, Spam, Open Discussion.
    POPFile FAQ. POPFile Download - Windows installation e cross-platafrm.
    SourceForge Project: POPFile.
  • MailGate SpamWeasel
    Features: Easy to install, Powerful rules, Highly configurable, Archive viewing, Mail management, Free of charge.
  • Mozilla Spam Filtering
    As of early in the Mozilla 1.3 development cycle, Mozilla Mail now has basic junk-mail classification capabilities. The infrastructure is being written with the idea of one day being able to have and use multiple mail filtering plugins. For the moment, however, only one is currently supported, and it does Bayesian classification as described in Paul Graham's A Plan for Spam.
  • TUCOWS E-Mail Anti-Spam Software
  • Freeware Anti-Spam Tools & Shareware Anti-Spam Tools
    By WebAttack.com Internet software collection.

Software for E-mail Gateways and Servers

Spam blocking and anti-virus e-mail scanners.

  • SpamAssassin
    Apache SpamAssassin Project, formerly spamassassin.org.
    SpamAssassin is a rule-based mail filter to identify "spam", also known as unsolicited commercial email. It uses a wide range of heuristic tests on mail mail headers and body text to identify spam, as well as blacklists and Razor spam databases.
    The distribution provides a command line tool (spamassassin) to perform filtering, along with a set of Perl modules (Mail::SpamAssassin) which implement a Mail::Audit plugin, allowing SpamAssassin to be used in a mail filter, or in a spam-protection proxy POP/IMAP server. SpamAssassin is free software, open source distributed under Perl's Artistic license, also available at CPAN. Requires Perl (5.6 or greater recommended).
    • SpamAssassin Configuration Generator
      Web tool designed to make it easier to customize an installation of SpamAssassin with some common options, by Michael Moncur. After you answer a set if questions, a SpamAssassin configuration file matching your choices will be displayed, and you can download it and use it with your SpamAssassin installation.
  • Spamikaze
    Spamikaze is an automated spam blocklist system, designed to: block spam at the SMTP level; reduce false positives; work with existing mail servers; make sending spam as annoying as receiving spam. Unlike some other spam blocking systems, Spamikaze does no tests for open relay or open proxy vulnerabilities at all. Instead, Spamikaze simply lists the IP addresses that have sent spam and allows anybody to remove IP addresses from the list. Spamikaze is free software.
  • MailScanner
    MailScanner (original home) is a complete e-mail security system designed for use on e-mail gateways. It protects against viruses, and detects attacks against e-mail client packages (such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora). It can also detect almost all unsolicited commercial e-mail (spam) passing through it and respond to all incidents in a wide variety of ways. To achieve a high level of trust, MailScanner is open source, distributed for free under the GNU Public Licence (GPL).
    MailScanner can also protect against unknown viruses hidden inside e-mail attachments by refusing attachments whose filenames match any given pattern (example: refuse any file with ".txt.vbs" extension). Attachments containing viruses can be automatically disinfected, if possible. MailScanner is easy to install into an existing e-mail gateway, requiring very little knowledge of sendmail and no change to an existing sendmail configuration. MailScanner itself is entirely open source and it is superior to many commercial packages, but it uses widely known commercial virus scanning packages at its core. Based on sendmail or Exim e-mail service, compatible with 8 commercial file-based virus scanners (auto-update for McAfee and Sophos also supported), but it can be easily adapted to use any other file-based virus scanner.
  • Inflex
    By Paul L Daniels, owner of PLDaniels/PLD.
    Inflex is an Open Source solution to scanning emails which are passing through your server, both incoming (local) and outbound. Inflex give to you the ability to block or pass email based on any set of tests you choose, varying from virus scans to email text content rules. GNU General Public License (GPL).
    Inflex General discussion list. FreshMeat.net Open Source Projects: Inflex.
    Inflex Electronic Mail Scanning System site: Inflex.
  • PureMessage
    PureMessage (formerly PerlMx) is a complete email filtering system for spam protection, virus protection, and corporate policy enforcement, at the gateway level. Anti-virus protection from McAfee Security, Web-based Admin, Extensible Interface (API). For Linux x86, Solaris, HP-UX, FreeBSD.
  • Spam Hippo
    Free Spam Removal Software for News Servers.
    Written by Kachun Lee for PathLink Technology Corporation.
  • SpamBouncer
    A Procmail based spam filter. Free software by Catherine A. Hampton.
  • MIMEDefang
    MIMEDefang is a framework for filtering e-mail. It uses Sendmail's "Milter" API, some C glue code, and some Perl code to let you write high-performance mail filters in Perl. People use MIMEDefang to: Block viruses, Block or tag spam, Remove HTML mail parts, Add boilerplate disclaimers to outgoing mail, Remove or alter attachments, Implement sophisticated access controls. You're limited only by your imagination. If you can think of it and code it in Perl, you can do it with MIMEDefang.
    MIMEDefang Discussion List.
  • Armour GateSecure
    ByExtol Corp.
  • AMaViS - A Mail Virus Scanner
  • Antivirus -- a Sendmail Milter
    By William Colburn. Requires Sendmail 8.12.2 or later, ripmime (free), Mcafee Virusscan for UNIX (commercial).
    Milter Slash Site.
  • Qmail-Scanner: Content Scanner for Qmail
    Qmail-Scanner (also known as scan4virus) is a content scanner: an addon that enables a Qmail Email server to scan all gatewayed Email for certain contents. It is typically used for its anti-virus protection functions (used in conjunction with commercial virus scanners), but also enables scanning by message headers and text string patterns, and attachment filenames or types. This software is open source released under the GPL.
  • LinuxLinks: Internet Mail Utilities

SPF - Sender Policy Framework & SRS - Sender Rewriting Scheme

Anti-Virus Gateway Info