Big changes at ExchangeDefender

We have some new and exciting changes coming to ExchangeDefender with the new release now less than two weeks from launch. However, I wanted to introduce you to some network-wide changes and explain them to the best of my ability so you can clearly communicate them to your clients.

If you take a look at www.ownwebnow.com/new and sign up for one of our webcasts, you will notice that there are a ton of new features coming to ExchangeDefender. We are also running a huge sales special. No, we are not a car lot, we don’t “make it up with volume” but by optimizing our technology.

Starting November 23, 2009 we will no longer accept messages from known spammers that have been listed on SpamCop and SpamHaus realtime blacklists. We have used SpamCop and SpamHaus to automatically drop non-whitelisted messages into the SureSPAM quarantine and during that time we have had less than 0.0000000001% release rate with an overwhelming number of released messages being forged junk messages. To put it even more plainly, even the messages from these servers that our clients thought were legitimate turned out to be fraudulent.

This has become even more obvious lately as spoofing has become more and more common. Say a client whitelists “@aol.com” or “@live.com” domain. ExchangeDefender will look at the header of the incoming message and even though we know it’s on multiple RBL’s, we will accept it and deliver it to the user as a non-spam. This has increased the complaint rate by our users who say more and more SPAM is getting through while they knowingly whitelisted domains that are often spoofed.

We will be joining almost all of the other major providers that do not accept mail from the known SPAM addresses.

Wait, you’re going to be deleting my mail?

No. We will only be deferring them. Every message reviewed by ExchangeDefender and confirmed to be on a RBL will be temporarily deferred (not accepted) and the remote senders server will attempt to send the message again later. Since messages on SpamCop and SpamHaus are not accepted by any of the large service providers, the sender will be alerted by dozens of other recipients who automatically reject messages on RBL networks. They will not only not be able to send mail to you but to anyone else.

We believe that if the sender is legitimate, they will address the RBL situation quickly and messages will be delivered to us promptly. However, if they are a known source of SPAM and choose to do nothing about distributing viruses and/or SPAM we have to do what’s in the best interest of the network and all the users that it protects.

We don’t expect this to be an issue as it really is a norm in the industry and virtually nobody knowingly accepts SPAM from addresses on these large, reputable commercial RBLs. SpamHaus and SpamCop come with excellent reputation and our own statistical models indicate that this will be a nonissue. This policy has been in place with our Exchange 2007 hosting network and our virtual web / mail hosting platform for over a year without complaints.

But we wanted you to know why your SPAM counts will drop dramatically ahead of time.

Sincerely,

Vlad Mazek, MCSE

CEO, Own Web Now Corp