Spam OK, Im Full Already

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Spam!OK, Im Full Already

• Why do we get so much
• How do they find us
• How can we slow it down

Mac Carey Director of Technology Systems Contra
Costa County Office of Education
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What is spam?

• Monty Python gets into the act
• Hormel SPAM
• Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE)

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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How do spammers find us?

• Chat Rooms
• Instant Messaging
• Cookies and Spyware
• Email Harvesting Robots
• Brute Attacks on your Mail Server

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Who are the spammers?

• Legitimate Advertisers
• Unscrupulous Opportunists
• Major Companies provide funding
• Major ISPs tolerate them

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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How to Identify the Origin of a Spam Message

• Look at the complete HEADER of an incoming spam
  message
• Outlook right click on message in inbox and go
  to properties
• Eudora Click on Blah Blah icon
• Use NS Lookup to analyze the domain or IP address
• Open Relays

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Spy-Ware

• Cookies, Ad-Ware and other Spy-Ware propagate
  spam
• Sometimes just opening email or a web page will
  download little applets on your workstation
• These applets may upload info from your computer

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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How spammers hide their tracks

• One way is use of spy-bots to search Internet for
  open mail relays
• Spam looks like it came from legitimate source.
• Network Managers should close these holes

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Decreasing the spam you get

• Make sure your email address is not available to
  be plucked off the Internet
• Disguise e-mail address posted in a public
  electronic place (example at domain dot com)
• Post an image of your email address
• Exercise your choice on online forms.
• Use Multiple email addresses

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Decreasing spam (cont.)

• Fighting SpamBots
• Besides email coding and images try using a
  javascript to provide a mailto link spambots
  cant use.

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Decreasing spam (cont.)

• Filter
• Ask your network administrator or ISP provider if
  they can filter spam before it gets to your
  desktop
• Use the filter your email client provides

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Decreasing spam (cont.)

• How to respond to spam
• DONT

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Stopping Spam at the Network (School/District)
Level

• Security Document
• Enterprise Spam Software
• Enterprise Spam Appliance
• Stricter the rules the greater chance of
  legitimate email being blocked.

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Types of Filtering

• Access Lists
• Real Time Black Hole Lists
• White Lists
• Reverse DNS Lookups

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Types of Filtering (Cont)

• Signatures
• Heuristics
• Image Scanning

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Types of Filtering (Cont)

• Header Analysis
• Bayesian Filtering and Content Searching
• Many solutions use one or a combination of all
  three. The most efficient systems have some
  intelligence built-in that learn filter patterns
  and apply them to the filters.  

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Companies that have Network Spam Products

• McAffee Spam Assassin now out
• Lightspeed. http//www.lightspeedsystems.com/spam_
  blocking.asp
• Audience POLL of good spam software/appliances
  you are using

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Adware and Spy-ware Detectors and Cleaners

• Ad-Aware - a freeware ad-ware cleaner finds and
  removes ad-ware and some spy-ware applets hidden
  on your system. From LavaSoft. Available from
  many download sites for free.
• SpyBot Search and Destroy - This is a more
  aggressive program that can clean and immunize
  against spy-ware. Suggested for advanced users
  only.

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Procedures to handle SPAMand Blocked Email

• ? Public Relations (Getting Blamed for Spam)
• See Sample Email Complaint/Response
• ? Procedures to handle SPAM
• See Sample SPAM Procedure
• ? Procedures to handle Blocked Email
• See Sample Blocked Email Procedure

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Internet Resources

• SPAM ABUSE. NET (http//spam.abuse.net) is a site
  with the goal of promoting responsible net
  commerce through fighting spam.
• About Spam
• Help for Users
• Help for System Administrators
• FAQs

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Internet Resources (cont.)

• Stop Spam FAQ
• http//www.mall-net.com/spamfaq.html
• List of Anti-Spam software
• http//gigenestuff.homestead.com/spamsoftware.html
  
• Free and Shareware Anti-Spam tools
• http//www.webattack.com/freeware/comm/fwspam.shtm
  l
• http//www.webattack.com/shareware/comm/swspam.sht
  ml

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Internet Resources (Cont)

• Foundations
• SpamCon Foundation
• http//www.spamcon.org/
• Coalition Against Unsolicited Email
• http//www.cauce.org/
• Email Abuse.org
• http//www.emailabuse.org

Contra Costa County Office of Education
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Questions ?
Contra Costa County Office of Education
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ThankYou
Mac Carey Email mcarey_at_cccoe.k12.ca.us
Contra Costa County Office of Education