Author Archives: MxToolbox Blog

New MxWatch (Server Monitoring) Dashboard Launched

MxToolBox has provided Free DNS Tools, including MxWatch Server Monitoring since 2003. Since then we have been pushing hard to improve your experience with our tools and in the last year we overhauled MxWatch to a new look and feel. Today we are excited to release a new and improved MxWatch Dashboard. We want to emphasize that this is merely a new look for the MxWatch system; nothing behind the scenes in how the tool works will be changed during this launch.

Tag/Alert View
The Tag/Alert View on the left is helpful to quickly view the status of your alerts. If there was an issue a red or yellow flag would float next to the respective tag. You can quickly make updates to your Tags using the Manage Tags button. Tags are very similar to Google Labels, or Outlook folders. The idea is that you can “tag” an alert for quick reference and to help you remember what service you are monitoring. You can also group alerts together using tags if you want an overview of multiple systems. If you need more help with Tags, view our helpful video on the Manage Tags page.

If you are not comfortable with the Tag View you can also use the alternate Alert View, which is very similar to the old My Alerts page.

Alert History Visualization
Our Engineers have added a new tool that quickly shows the most recent issues for your monitors. If an orange square falls under a date, that means there was an issue. Simply click the orange square for more information.

What’s Down
The What’s Down button replaces the My Alerts button and defaults to showing you what is down as opposed to all of your alerts. If you would like to view all of your alerts, simply uncheck the box ‘Show only down’ and all alerts will be shown.

History
The History button replaces the Alert History button. Click this to see a concise and quick history of your monitors.

If you haven’t signed up for a Free Monitoring account, we urge you to give it a try! Go here. If you are return user, please logon and check out the new Dashboard.

Our Engineers are continually working on this service to further improve it’s functionality and ease of use. We are very interested in your feedback on the MxWatch Dashboard and we urge you to send us your ideas for improvement as well. Please feel free to reach out to us at feedback@mxtoolbox.com.

March Newsletter – Does MxToolBox Advocate the Use of Blacklists?

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March Newsletter – Does MxToolBox Advocate the Use of Blacklists?

One of the most common security challenges for companies is keeping their organization’s email off of Blacklists. A Blacklist, or Realtime Black List (RBL) is simply a database of dangerous IP Addresses that email server operators can use to reject mail from sources that have been identified as sending spam. When your company gets Blacklisted it can cause major trouble for your business and often has detrimental effects on your email delivery and the ability to reach your prospects and/or current customers; and that can mean loss of existing or potential business!

People all around the world rely on our Super Tool (Blacklist Lookup) and our MxWatch Email Server Monitoring services on a daily basis to let them know if they have network problems. We wanted to help shed a little light on blacklisting and what that means for you and your business. We hope to answer a few common questions that we’ve recently received:

Q: Are Blacklists credible organizations?
A: Some are; some are not.

Q: Is MxToolBox a credible organization?
A: Absolutely! We are here to help you understand blacklists and how they can affect your business. We also understand how time consuming they can be and we are here to offer you a solution!

Q: Does inclusion of a blacklist on the MxToolBox Super Tool have any effect on my email delivery?
A: Absolutely not. We simply report that your IP Address is listed. The effect that it has on your email is 100% dependent on the recipients who choose to use said blacklist as a spam-filter on their email servers. For instance, if your IP is in the blacklist database and the recipient uses it as a filter; your emails will likely bounce and they won’t accept them. If your IP is not listed, your mail should be accepted in the majority of cases. This also doesn’t mean the recipient server won’t mark you as “Spam” based on content. If that’s the case, keep in mind your email was still accepted by the recipient server.

Q: Does inclusion of a blacklist on the MxToolBox Super Tool advocate the use of a blacklist?
A: Absolutely not. Again, we are simply here to report the data of the blacklist databases. For blacklists that have a bad reputation for the listing criteria and/or delisting protocol, the problem is not that MxToolBox reports the data; we are here to help alert you. The problem is the organizations that choose to use said Blacklists as a tool despite their [the blacklists] poor reputations. We’re here to help you understand that and to make recommendations on how to solve the problems!

A good example is the NOMOREFUNN Blacklist whose website is currently down. We are aware of the NOMOREFUNN site issue; However, their database is still returning positive results and we will continue to provide those results as long as they are active.

The number one thing about which you need to be concerned is whether or not there is any effect on your outbound mail delivery. If you are getting bounced or returned messages or your recipients are not getting your messages, then you should be concerned that you have a bigger problem at hand. Most blacklists can be contacted for removal once you’re cleared up any issues in your network.

Regardless of what is causing the problem, MxToolBox can offer you a solution that includes Spam & Virus Protection with Outbound Blacklist Managment. If you run your own email server, we can offer you Emergency Mail. If you are hosted and are looking for a bigger, better and more secure environment, we can provide Email Hosting, MxToolBox Supported Google Apps for Business & Microsoft Office 365. No matter which service you choose, MxToolBox is going to take care of your email.

Please feel free to contact our Customer Care Team by emailing sales@mxtoolbox.com or simply call 1-866-MxToolBox (698-6652) with any questions or to learn how you can put the Blacklist issue behind you forever!

NOMOREFUNN Realtime Blacklist Website Having Issues

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A few weeks ago we started receiving notices that the NOMOREFUNN Realtime Black List (RBL) website was down. We’ve been monitoring their site for a few weeks and their website remains down however the RBL database itself is up and taking queries. Unfortunately we don’t have any details as to why/when the site went down.

Although the website remains down, the RBL list is answering and is being maintained. Due to the RBL List still answering and showing in an active state, we will not be removing this list from our tool at this time.

MxToolBox is not affiliated with any Blacklists nor does inclusion on our tool advocate the use of any specific lists. We simply provide a public tool that can be utilized to see if you are on a Blacklist. If you are on a Blacklist, or more importantly, if you are having problems with your email delivery and you’re not getting the help you expect from the blacklists themselves or the recipients to which you cannot send; MxToolBox has a Solution! MxToolBox offers Blacklist Protection! For more information please feel free to visit our website or email info@mxtoolbox.com. You can always call 866-MxToolBox (698-6652) and ask to speak to any of our blacklist specialists for assistance or to learn more about our solutions.

We’re always looking for new Blacklists to add to our tools. If you have one you would like to suggest, please send an email to support@mxtoolbox.com.

For information about other Blacklists that have shut down or Blacklists that are having problems, view this forum post.

Tax Time – Here comes the Spam!

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It’s that time of year again; tax time. Here you are preparing your tax return and you’re already getting emails about the submission before you’ve finished? BEWARE of spammers trying to take advantage of you during this time. We have already seen several different versions of emails that spammers have sent.

The goal of these campaigns is to have you click on their spam campaign. The links in the email will direct you to a fraudulent web site. Keep in mind that these are designed to look very official and are actually composed nicely with correct grammar (most of the time) and appear to be very professional. Clicking on these emails can lead to your computer becoming infected with a virus, trojan or malware. What’s worse, these campaigns are using phishing which is designed to gather your personal information including your social security number, login information or even your credit card data.

How do you avoid these spam campaigns?
Spammers unfortunately often have the upper hand because they create the spam campaign and then Email Providers like MxToolBox have to quickly adjust their filters. While the filters are being automatically adjusted to combat these types of spam attacks you may still encounter messages like this. In addition to being aware of these potentially dangerous spam tactics we would also recommend having the correct protection! Most of us have a good Anti-virus program but that is like locking the front door but leaving a window open. If you click on an email that has a fraudulent link, you have opened the your personal window to a web-based attack. Unfortunately most networks don’t have Internet Browser Web Security so you could be very vulnerable to this type of email to web-based attack.

MxToolbox has partnered with Webroot to offer Web Security to protect your network from attacks through the web browser. Our Total Security Solution includes Business Email Perimeter Security in combination with Web Security to provide additional layers of protection to combat Email and Internet threats. Webroot eliminates spyware and viruses with best-of-breed scanning engines and offers a 100% guarantee. In addition to protecting against malware you have the ability to enforce web access policies and generate detailed reports on your users’ browsing history.

Below are a few samples of the most recent spam campaigns we have noticed. You may notice that the third one below is not necessarily tax related, but is an inquiry from the Better Business Burea. This is not a real request and is spam. Be wary!

If you’ve ever had problems with Spam like this in your network, or worse yet, if you’ve experienced the pains and toils of the virus/malware infections that results; rest easy – there is a solution. Even if you have Anti-Virus software installed, it’s not enough; you can still be susceptible to these problems.

Please visit our Website to learn more about our Web Security Solution and call (866)-MXTOOLBOX / (866)-698-6652 to speak to one of our specialists about how you can put this problem to rest forever!

Postini – 4000 Character Approved/Blocked Sender Limit

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List length limit (4000) exceeded.

If you have received this error when trying to add to your approved/blocked sender list, it can be very frustrating!

Postini has limited the number of characters (not entries) and the maximum number of characters allowed for each approved/blocked list in the Administration Console to 4000. If each entry is 30 to 40 characters, each sender list can include approximately 100 to 130 addresses and domains.

To free up more space, we recommend deleting addresses that are no longer used. Keep in mind that if you are managing your Approved/Blocked Sender List in your Postini Message Center, you are only adjusting your personal preferences. Your administrator may consider adding an address to the global organization-level list to improve filtering for all users. If that is done, this would mean that you could remove that particular address from your list and free up a bit of space.

Keep in mind that the approved/blocked lists are meant to allow addresses that have had issues getting through the filters; we do not recommend proactively adding email addresses to the approved sender list. Adjusting your approved/blocked senders list can allow spam through unknowingly. We also highly recommend never adding your own domain or any specific email address on your domain as that can cause spoofing and then you have opened the door to spam!

Google Apps Email Security (Postini Standalone Filtering)

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In addition to your Google Apps Premier account you can enable Postini Standalone Filtering for greater spam fighting control. From the Google Apps control panel, you can configure Email settings for each organization in your domain. For example, you can set up multiple Content compliance and Objectionable content settings, and tailor these settings for a specific organization or sub-organization.

To add an email setting for an organization:

Sign in to the Google Apps control panel at https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain.com
Then enter your username and password to open the control panel.
From the menu at the top of the page, select the Settings tab.
From the left-navigation menu, click Email.
From the Email settings page, click Filters.
In the Organizations section near the top of the page, highlight the organization for which you want to add settings.
To create a new setting, click the Add Setting button near the right edge of the window (the Add setting dialog box opens).
Click the type of setting in the left navigation menu of the dialog box — for example, Objectionable content or Content compliance.
For detailed instructions on adding specific types of settings, see the following:
Content compliance
Objectionable content
Append footers
Approved sender lists
Blocked sender lists
Attachment compliance
Restrict email delivery
When you are finished making changes, click Add Setting.Note: Any settings you add or edit will be highlighted in yellow-orange on the Email settings page.
Click Save changes at the bottom of the Email settings page.

Additional Resources
What’s the difference between Postini integrated and standalone?
Postini Transition to Google Apps Email Security: Administration Guide

February Newsletter – MxToolbox – A Customer Service Company That Just Happens To Do Email

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Why do businesses choose MxToolBox vs. other email solution providers?

Most people come to mxtoolbox.com to use our free tools and to get a better understanding about blacklists and why their company may be on one. The vast majority of those visitors to our website actually buy services from us because we end up knowing more about why they are experiencing problems than their current provider does.

We know that there are many different email and web security options available in the market today but we are committed to being the very best. To prove that, we routinely go above and beyond what many of our competitors are willing to do.

Let us wow you with our “Top 5 Reasons” why you would be crazy to let anyone other than MxToolBox handle your company’s email:

No one provides Outbound-reputation protection against blacklists like MxToolBox does. Over half the people that hit our site already have another Spam-Service provider and/or existing Hardware and Software and yet they still have problems.
No other company provides Email Hosting & Collaboration Suites, Email Security, Email Continuity, Web Security and Server/MailFlow Monitoring– ALL from one source!
We don’t believe that spam-filtering is all you need… We build inbound-spam protection which includes inbound message continuity with web access and outbound blacklist protection, with no hardware or software – All the protection your company needs is our Total Perimeter Security!
We know all providers are different. That is why we have the best breed of solutions to meet and exceed your company’s requirements.
We have the SuperTool that brought you here – Why would you go anywhere else? Plus – we have a Rock-Star Customer Support Team – Highly Available and you can understand us!

Not to mention we give you a 30-day no-risk, no obligation trial on any of our services. Please give us a call today at 866-MXTOOLBOX (866-698-6652) or email us at feedback@mxtoolbox.com to fix your email headaches for good!

American Airlines and UPS Spam Breaching Postini Filters – Automatic Updates to Filters Expected

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If you have received either the UPS Confirmation email or the American Airlines Order ID messages, you are not alone. Currently spam filters across the world are frantically adjusting their heuristics to combat these spam messages. While the filters are being automatically updated, we would recommend enabling a attachment filter to block these messages

NOTE: If this filter is applied, it will block any legitimate message with a .zip attachment. See below for the steps to enable the recommended filter and the recommended settings:

Attachment Manager Filter Steps

Access the customer’s Postini User Org (not MAIL or Email Config level) and enable the Inbound Attachment Manager.
We highly recommend enabling ‘Scan inside compressed file types’ and ‘Enable binary scanning’ as this may also help with any future evolutions.
To build a custom filter for blocking .zip attachments, select Filter and follow the image below:
Be sure to add ‘zip’ under 2. Custom Filter Types to either User Quarantine (in case of false positives) or under Quarantine Redirect.
Click Save and the filter is applied.

MxToolbox has partnered with WebRoot to offer Web Filtering to protect your network from attacks through the web browser. For more details on the protection that this program can offer, go here.

WSFF DNSBL Disabled

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Notice: Due to will-spam-for-food.eu.org (WSFF) enabling and disabling their RBL, our Blacklist Monitoring Service provided false results. From time to time list providers will enable their list (and list everyone) in an effort to ensure that no one is using their list.

At this time we have removed this RBL from our list. Our Engineers are also conducting an audit of our current list to ensure that it is the most accurate it can be.

For more information on what Blacklists are and how MxToolBox can help, read this blog post.

MxToolBox is not affiliated with any Blacklists, we just provide a public tool that can be utilized to see if you are on a Blacklist. If you are on a Blacklist, rest assured as we do offer Blacklist Protection! For more information please feel free to visit our website or email us at info@mxtoolbox.com.

We’re always looking for new Blacklists to add, so if you want to suggest one to us, please send an email to support@mxtoolbox.com.

For information about other Blacklists that have shut down or Blacklists that are having problems, view this forum post.

January Newsletter – New Year’s Resolutions for Email and Network Infrastructure

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In the spirit of our “Top Holiday Email Related Tools”, we thought we would start another list each January as our Resolution List. However, this list won’t be your typical list that includes “drink less soda” or “run a marathon” (all good things!), but will be more along the lines of what you can do to further protect your Email and Network Infrastructure.

Open Relay / Lock Down
In the past it wasn’t such a big deal to have your server as an open relay, but these days even having it open for a few days will more than likely invite spammers to infiltrate your network. An open relay is when an SMTP server is configured to accept anonymous connections to your servers’ IP Address or allow anonymous servers to relay off your server. If you continue to operate with your server as an Open Relay, your server will more than likely end up on a Blacklist which will cause outbound delivery issues.

To ensure that your mail server is not an Open Relay, we recommend only allowing email delivery on your public IP address for email addresses you own. If you have people outside of your network that need SMTP service, employ VPN, SMTP Authentication, or have them use a 3rd party SMTP server.

Another step that we recommended is to block outbound port 25 traffic only to your email server. To do this, simply make a rule on your firewall that stops outbound port 25 connections. Make a single exception for your email server. Lastly, we highly recommend keeping your server secure and running Anti-Virus (don’t forget to run updates!).

Web Security – Locks on the doors, but not the windows?
Now that you have secured your network by closing that pesky Open Relay, you have essentially locked all the doors into your network. But have you left a window open? Online threats have shifted their attention from launching attacks through email systems and have begun targeting web browsers as an often unguarded entryway into your infrastructure.

The firewall that protects your business network is configured to stop connections that originate from the Internet. However connections that originate from within your network are automatically granted access. Without this ability your employees would not be able to access any online resources outside of your network. One of the greatest security concerns on the Internet today is malware. This malicious software is often distributed via web pages and is designed to infiltrate a computer system without the owner’s knowledge or consent. Currently 85% of dangerous web activity is attributed to malware which makes proactive Web Security a necessity for every business. The most critical role of Web Security is to prevent malicious code from being brought in to the network; however, it can also be used to control access and generate reporting on your web usage if desired.

Blacklist Protection
One of the most common security challenges for companies is keeping their organization’s email off of Blacklists. When your company gets Blacklisted it will cause major trouble for your business and it will slow down your communication with current customers, prospects and in general the outside world. Email communication is a critical and profit dependent function of any business and this type of communication interruption is both time consuming, costly and completely 100% avoidable.

If you find that your company’s IP has been Blacklisted, what can you do? Well that is where MxToolBox can help! With Email Service through MxToolBox you won’t have to worry about Blacklists. Our highly trained IT professionals will not only help you find the root cause and eliminate your current Blacklist problems, but we can proactively implement solutions to keep your system protected and secure.

We hope that you are able to check off most of what we have covered. If you haven’t and you have further questions or need further assistance, please contact us at (866)-698-6652 or info@mxtoolbox.com and we’ll be happy to help!

Even if your company has not had its productivity hampered by any of the issues described above, now would be an ideal time to review what our Total Security Package which offers top-shelf Spam and Virus, Blacklist Protection and Web Security can do to further insulate and protect your company. With MxToolbox you can rest assured that your company’s email and web browsing is safe and secure.