RE: Question about "spoofing" emails.

From: Chris St. Pierre (no email)
Date: Thu Mar 01 2007 - 15:19:50 EST

  • Next message: Charles Marcus: "Re: Postfix rejecting NDRs with 501 5.5.4 Bad message size syntax ?"

    On Thu, 1 Mar 2007, Juan Pablo Calomino wrote:

    > John User may think that his mailbox is being used,
    > because in the mail he sees that the sender is
    > himself, and he doesn't know about MIME.
    > I explain that it is fake, so he asks me to try to
    > stop this "spoofed" emails.
    > And here I am, trying to find ways to stop these
    > mails, without stopping valid mails.

    You really _can't_ stop these. Rejecting messages where envelope
    sender != from header is a Very Bad Idea that will get you mostly
    FPs. SPF is an effort to limit sender spoofing, but its effectiveness
    is limited by its adoption rate. (It's still worth publishing and
    checking SPF records, IMHO.)

    This generally only becomes an issue when clueless admins are
    producing backscatter, so helping eliminate backscatter will help.
    You can also read http://www.postfix.org/BACKSCATTER_README.html for
    tips on reducing bounce messages to forged senders.

    (Aside: I dearly hope that Dr. Ken Olum gets joe-jobbed:
    http://www.cio.com/technology/infrastructure/security/spam/five_things_about_fighting_spam.html?CID=28830)

    When you've implemented SPF records and eliminated any backscatter you
    might be sending, you're left with user training and that's about it.

    Chris St. Pierre
    Unix Systems Administrator
    Nebraska Wesleyan University
    -------------------
    Never send mail to


  • Next message: Charles Marcus: "Re: Postfix rejecting NDRs with 501 5.5.4 Bad message size syntax ?"





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