Latest Spam Onslaught

Unless you use the type of antispam service I offer, you have probably noticed a new onslaught of spam.

This is particularly crippling for many businesses in the UK, where the most popular antispam services are not as sophisticated. With a less refined filter, they’re caught between the devil and the deep blue sea—if they tighten the filter enough not to be driven crazy by this wave of spam, a lot of legitimate email will be blocked also and they will lose business (which nobody can afford, especially these days).

The culprit is a hacker who penetrated Epsilon, the largest permission-based email service on Earth. So far it looks like the hacker only got email addresses, not password or other sensitive information that could be used to hijack people’s accounts. But the email addresses are now in the hands of spammers. Unless you live under a rock, chances are high that your email address is among those now being flooded with new spam.

Seven of the ten biggest companies on the Fortune list use Epsilon to manage their customer email lists. Epsilon has more than 2,500 clients. According to MSNBC, the customer lists they manage in the USA include:

• TiVo
• JPMorgan Chase
• Capital One
• Barclays Bank of Delaware
• Marriott Rewards
• Ritz-Carlton Rewards
• Best Buy
• Walgreens
• LL Bean
• Kroger
• Home Shopping Network
• Disney Destinations
• Robert Half Technologies
• The College Board
• Target

I’m on some of those lists. Thanks to my antispam system, I haven’t seen any difference in what comes to my inbox. My system is very good at blocking spam while letting legitimate messages through. But I noticed blocked traffic suddenly burgeoned, and this is why. (Filtered-out email doesn’t come through to my PC, but I can look at it in a browser and release anything on the rare occasions when I want a blocked message to be delivered.)

I maintain one account through Postini, the next best thing, for comparison. It doesn’t toss in disaster redundancy at no charge, as I do, and it isn’t quite as good. I really feel sorry for anybody whose antispam isn’t as clever as what I use.

If this latest flood of spam is giving you headaches and you control the email for your Internet domain, use the contact form on this website to get in touch with me. I will be glad to set up a trial for you—ait doesn’t matter whether you are working solo or have a company with thousands of accounts. Setup is easy and will get you through the worst of this flood. At the end of 30 days, if you don’t want to continue, just say so and I’ll undo it in minutes.