Transition to new servers almost complete

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Last weekend we moved the domains www.spamdrain.net, pop.spamdrain.net and imap.spamdrain.net to our new servers. This means that we’re now almost completely running on the new infrastructure we first wrote about back in March. It’s taken a bit longer than we expected back then but now we’re almost there.

The only thing remaining now is to move the services providing filtering for our domain filtering customers. We will do this during the coming months and we hope this will be completed by the end of the summer. Most of you who use the domain filtering service won’t have to do anything and won’t notice. No need to change your MX records.

If you have set up your firewall as recommended in our FAQ you will only have to make sure to update the rules so that it doesn’t block the IP addresses used by our new servers. Please make sure your firewall has been configured to accept all traffic on port 25 (or the port used by your mail server) from the following IP addresses:

85.24.138.228
85.24.138.229
85.24.138.129
62.75.203.192 - 62.75.203.223 (62.75.203.192/27)

You can read more about how to configure your firewall in our FAQ (log in required).

Has Angelina Jolie invited you to join Facebook?

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The last days we have seen a massive spam attack claiming that Angelina Jolie has invited you to Facebook. As usual the e-mail is well formed and appears to be a normal Facebook e-mail. However, instead they are linking to sites containing viruses or selling certain medications. The spammer sending these spam is currently the largest spammer according to Spamhaus and they have hundreds of domains registered. They are using bot nets and Chinese web hosting for their web site.

We are also seeing a lot of Twitter spam e-mails. These messages claiming someone was trying to steal your Twitter account password. To fix that you it say that you should open the attach file, which obviously is a virus. (Just in case you don’t get this, you should NOT open that file if you receive one of these messages :-)). My guess is that the virus is yet another trojan converting your computer to a spam sending machine.

So, the trend is pretty clear: spammers also try to use social media – or at least the names of well known social media services like Facebook and Twitter.

E-mail from Facebook is spam from Canadian pharmacy

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From time to time we see that spammers tend to copy e-mail layouts and content from legitimate companies. We have reported about the Twitter spam messages as one example. Now, Facebook is the target in a new spam attack. The messages say that the recipient has received a message from Facebook with important information. Of course, this isn’t true.

Spam message claming "Important information" from Facebook

Spam message claming "Important information" from Facebook

The message looks just like the original Facebook messages. When clicking the link that appear to go to Facebook the user is instead sent to a web shop with fake pills other not unwanted products from “The Canadian Pharmacy”.

Classical "pharmacy" site selling fake Viagra, Cializ and other pills

Classical "pharmacy" site selling fake Viagra, Cializ and other pills

Normally these sites is located on different domains that eventually get blocked by content filters in browsers and proxy servers after a while. When this happens they move the site to a new domain names and send out new spam messages. And how do SpamDrain handle these messages? Sign up and try for your self 🙂

Network disturbances since 19:30 CET (RESOLVED)

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We are currently experiencing network disturbances at our supplier. We are investigating the cause of these problems and hope they will be resolved soon.

Update: Systems are now up and running again. There may still be some disturbances the next hours. We have talked to our supplier and they were having hardware problems which caused interruptions in several parts of their network. They have now replaced necessary hardware to prevent more problems.
We apologize the inconvenience and would also like to point out that we are now entering a new phase in testing our new servers. They will increase stability and robustness and we hope to switch to the new servers really soon.

Spam appearing like Twitter e-mail updates

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Maybe  you have seen the spam messages that looks just like a normal update from Twitter? The design and texts are identical to the Twitter original, informing you that you have 3 new messages or that someone has started to follow you. However, when you click the link that appears to go to Twitter, you end up at some drug store that sells these famous blue pills – or at least a cheap copy of them. Continue reading →

Focus on scalability, stability and user experience

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Lately we have been working hard on handling the recent growth we have had. As you probably have noticed we have had some stability problems and we apologize for that. The last weeks we have made some changes to our infrastructure and started to migrate to new servers. This work will increase performance and provide better fail over than before. We hope this work will be finished within the next 2 – 3 weeks. We’re expecting to carry out the remaining changes without any disruptions to the service.

As a necessary step we have also moved some of our system to the cloud. This will improve the performance of our database servers and will also let us handle backups more efficiently.

In parallel with this work we have also worked on making minor changes to improve the experience of the overall service, such as improving your SpamDrain reports, adding support for payments in USD and support for payments through Paypal. We have also updated our price lists so they are easier to read. The next step on the web site is to make the sign up and on boarding as easy as in our mobile applications. That will be exciting work and hopefully we will be able to help even more people to get rid of annoying and time consuming spam messages.

Until next time – we wish you e-mail peace of mind and hope that you continue reporting your spam to us. That’s what makes the SpamDrain service so fantastic!

SpamDrain Android app now available in Android Market

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As a result of the success with our iPhone application we have now released our first version of SpamDrain for Android phones. As for the iPhone application, the Android version gives users the opportunity to sign up for SpamDrain and get started with the filtering of their e-mail.

The application is free and can be used by anyone with a SpamDrain account as well to view some statistics of your account and basic information about your subscription.

SpamDrain iPhone app available in App Store

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SpamDrain iPhone Application is now available in App Store. Please give us feedback what you would like to see in the application.

The application enables iPhone users to easily sign up to SpamDrain and get the spam filtering started. When logged on to the application you see statistics for your account and some basic information about your subscription. We hope to add more value to the application during 2010.

Support closed for holidays

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Our support will be closed during the holidays and re-opens again January 11 2010. We will answer your e-mails as usual during the working days, but the phone support will be closed.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!