OnlyMyEmail Stops More Spam 8 Competitions In A Row

May 16th, 2012

For the eighth time in a row, OnlyMyEmail has blocked more spam than any other email filter in the Virus Bulletin VBSpam Challenge.

Once again, OnlyMyEmail’s MX-Defender accurately filtered out more spam than all other competitors tested, missing just 4 spam emails out of 146,121 total. This represents a spam capture rate of 99.997%.

By comparison, the next best capture rate was SpamTitan which not only missed 47 spam emails, but also inadvertently blocked 600% more legitimate emails, known as false-positive results.

The average “false-negative” rate among the other 21 filtering systems tested was a whopping 293 missed spam messages and the median was 176.

The results from Virus Bulletin’s VBSpam Challenge have proven, time and again, that OnlyMyEmail’s MX-Defender is decisively superior to any other spam defense available today, including hardware appliances, software programs and other Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions solutions as well.

Quoting from the full VBSpam review:

In this test, OnlyMyEmail missed fewer than one in 36,000 spam messages. After several exceptional performances like this, we’ve almost stopped being surprised and thus it is good to note that many users do not even receive this much spam in a full year!

The full list of competitors to date, includes: AnubisNetworks, BitDefender, CronLab Anti-Spam, FortiMail, GFI MailEssentials, Halon Security, IBM Lotus Protector, Kaspersky Anti-Spam, Libra Esva, Mailshell, McAfee Email Gateway, McAfee EWS, McAfee SaaS, Sophos Email Appliance, SPAM fighter, SpamTitan, Spider Antispam, Symantec Messaging Gateway, The Email Laundry, Vade Retro, Vamsoft ORF, Spamhaus ZEN+DBL and SURBL.

Tags: email, spam, Virus Bulletin VBSpam Competition
Posted in All About Email, Spam News, Spam-Stats | No Comments »

Email Protocols & Settings, Your Best Choices

May 3rd, 2012

Now that email is everywhere, not only on computers but on phones and tablets, even casual technology users need to understand their email configuration options.

Not only can understanding your choices make managing your email easier, but your efficiency, privacy and security can be greatly enhanced as well.

For receiving email the most common protocol is old good old-fashioned Post Office Protocol (POP3).

Using this protocol any device can download messages from your email hosting servers. If you use multiple devices you might want to configure each device “leave mail on server” for just a few days in order to allow each device enough time to download a copy of each message. Leaving too much mail on your email server for too long can slow down your access and also exceed your email storage quota. For more on this subject, see: Should I Leave Messages On The Server?
more »

Tags: email, email clients, hosting
Posted in All About Email | No Comments »

REMAX “Hot Properties” Email Phishing Fraud

April 25th, 2012

One of the most effective tactics in use by spammers today is the hijacking/theft of legitimate user’s email accounts for use in furthering spam campaigns.

There are actually four distinct reasons why it is so powerful for spammers to be able to send spam from a previously legitimate user’s email account:

Once the account is stolen, the spammer’s software can read through the address book, inbox, sent mail and all other folders scraping the email addresses of people the legitimate user has corresponded with in the past. These emails then make excellent targets for sending spam.
Email from actual AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and other ubiquitous email services are much less likely to be blocked by spam filtering systems.
Even when a spam filter correctly recognizes that an email is spam, end users often have added such senders to their Allow or White lists, thus forcing delivery from the now compromised account.
Further, recipients commonly retrieve spam from their filtering system when they recognize the sending address, but don’t realize the sender’s account has been compromised.

When you add it all up, there really is no better method of getting your spam delivered, and then actually opened by the target recipient.

Tags: fraud, phishing, scam, spoofing
Posted in Email Fraud, Phishing Lessons, Spam Tactics | Comments Off

Once Again, OnlyMyEmail Stops More Spam

February 4th, 2012

The results from OnlyMyEmail’s seventh participation in the Virus Bulletin VBSpam Challenge competition have been released.

For the seventh time in a row, OnlyMyEmail’s MX-Defender has blocked more spam than any other competing spam filtering solution. This time, OnlyMyEmail missed just four spam messages out of 113,770 total, for a spam filtering capture rate of rate of 99.996% and did so without blocking even a single legitimate email.

By comparison, the next best capture rate was McAfee SaaS which missed 53 spam messages but did so with a whopping 20 false positive results as well. The second best capture of any spam filter with the same zero false positives as OnlyMyEmail was Mailshell with a disappointing 113 missed spam emails.

The average “false-negative” rate among the other 23 filtering systems was a whopping 519 missed spam messages and the median was 193.

Tags: spam, Spam Review, Spam Test, Virus Bulletin
Posted in All About Email, Message Control, Spam News, Spam-Stats | Comments Off

Introducing Your US Department of Justice and FBI Victim Notification System

January 19th, 2012

Here’s something we really don’t see every day….

We recently received an email claiming to be from the U.S Department of Justice Victim Notification System (VNS)

Subject:    US Department of Justice Victim Notification System
From:    Courtney Walker <fedemail@vns.usdoj.gov>
To:    Business Representative <address>

Our typical “common sense” check for email Phishing Fraud starts with the obvious:

Overly serious/threatening Subject line…. check!
Human sender doesn’t match email address…. check!
Impersonal and generic salutation… check!

The email itself open with:

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL.

U.S. Department of Justice
Federal Bureau of Investigation
FBI – New York
26 Federal Plaza, 23rd Floor
New York, NY 10278
Phone: (212) 384-2564
Fax: (212) 384-4104

Tags: botnet, DOJ, FBI, fraud, Government, humor, phishing, Privacy, scam, Security, spam, spoofing
Posted in Above The Law, Email Fraud, Message Control, Phishing Lessons | Comments Off

OnlyMyEmail Beats 22 Competitors in the Virus Bulletin Spam Challenge

December 13th, 2011

The results from OnlyMyEmail’s sixth Virus Bulletin VBSpam Challenge competition have been released.

For the sixth time in a row, OnlyMyEmail’s MX-Defender stopped more spam than any of the 23 competing spam solutions. OnlyMyEmail missed just one single spam message out of 171,963 total, for a new record spam filtering capture rate of 99.9994% besting the previous record of 99.9993% - also set by OnlyMyEmail in a previous competition.
By comparison, the next best capture rate was McAfee SaaS which missed 41 spam messages. The third best capture rate was AnubisNetworks which missed 97 spam emails.

The average “false-negative” rate among the other 22 filtering systems was a whopping 3,471 missed spam messages and the median was 272.

The results from Virus Bulletin’s VBSpam Challenge have proven, time and again, that for the last year OnlyMyEmail’s MX-Defender is decisively superior to any other spam defense available today, including hardware appliances, software programs and other Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions solutions as well.

The full list of competitors beaten by OnlyMyEmail includes: AnubisNetworks, BitDefender, FortiMail, GFI MailEssentials, Halon Security, IBM Lotus Protector, Kaspersky Anti-Spam, Libra Esva, Mailshell, McAfee Email Gateway, McAfee EWS, McAfee SaaS, Sophos Email Appliance, SPAM fighter, SpamTitan, Spider Antispam, Symantec Messaging Gateway, The Email Laundry, Vade Retro, Vamsoft ORF, Spamhaus ZEN+DBL and SURBL.

Tags: spam, Spam Reviews, Spam Test
Posted in Message Control, Spam Tactics, Spam-Stats | Comments Off

Goldline International Joins the Legions of Spammers

August 19th, 2011

With the price of gold sky-high, the profits to be made must be equally impressive, turning side-show companies like “Goldline International” into first rate spammers.

Either that, or the high price has brought competitor’s out of the woodwork, making them so desperate for business they’ve now turned to spam.

Either way, whether it’s gouging customers, desperate for business or just ethically bankrupt the “Goldline” spam has hit the main vain.

The emails from their advertisements, SEO campaigns or third-party affiliates arrive with a subject line that currently announces:

Subject: Now Is The Time To Buy Gold!

These are blasted out from a wide variety of disposable sending domains using addresses that are “From:” more »

Tags: spam
Posted in Spam Tactics | Comments Off

Rejected ACH payment – Virus/Fraud

August 15th, 2011

Look out for fraudulent emails spoofing “The Electronic Payments Association” that are arriving as:

From: risk_manager@nacha.org
Subject: Rejected ACH payment

In reality these messages are from previously infected personal computers from across the globe:

from [122.168.251.32] (helo=ABTS-mp-dynamic-032.251.168.122.airtelbroadband.in)

These messages include a fictional warning that includes content such as:

The ACH transaction (ID: 32604668345041), recently sent from your checking account (by you or any other person), was rejected by the other financial institution.

Tags: botnet, fraud, malware, phishing, scam, spoofing, zombie
Posted in Email Fraud, Spam Tactics | Comments Off

What if someone says they sent me a message but I didn’t get it?

August 11th, 2011

We commonly receive questions from users who tell us an expected email has not arrived, and they don’t know how to go about finding it.

Fortunately, with proper information and the right approach, it’s not really that hard to track down missing email messages.

Like snail mail, email follows a path from the sender to the recipient and problems can arise along the way. When a package or letter hasn’t arrived, it doesn’t make much sense to start yelling at the mail carrier; instead you have to start at the beginning and follow the message from point to point.

Following the chain of possession, the most common causes of missing email are as follows: more »

Tags: email, email clients
Posted in All About Email, Message Control | Comments Off

Please Restore Your Account Access – Chase Fraud

August 10th, 2011

Spammers are nothing if not persistent, and even more so when it comes to the most sinister ones that are trying to steal your identity and your entire bank account.

They’re also smart enough to Phish in the biggest pools of potential victims, so the endless stream of cons targeting JP Morgan Chase customers makes perfect sense.

The latest comes with a subject:

Please Restore Your Account Access

Tags: fraud, phishing, scam, spoofing
Posted in Email Fraud, Spam Tactics | Comments Off