I have a massive spam problem on my server, which I cannot seem to find a cure for. Here is an example of the headers from an example email (from WHM) that is stuck in the mail queue:
Quote:
1HiU0X-0006Y3-O6-Hmailnull 47 12<>1177932329 0-ident mailnull-received_protocol local-body_linecount 78-allow_unqualified_recipient-allow_unqualified_sender-frozen 1177932333-localerrorXX1vrroark@freemail.ru144P Received: from mailnull by host.zaggs.com with local (Exim 4.63)id 1HiU0X-0006Y3-O6for vrroark@freemail.ru; Mon, 30 Apr 2007 12:25:06 +0100045 X-Failed-Recipients: download@host.zaggs.com029 Auto-Submitted: auto-replied058F From: Mail Delivery System <Mailer-Daemon@host.zaggs.com>024T To: vrroark@freemail.ru059 Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender047I Message-Id: <E1HiU0X-0006Y3-O6@host.zaggs.com>038 Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2007 12:25:06 +01001HiU0X-0006Y3-O6-DThis message was created automatically by mail delivery software.A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of itsrecipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed: download@host.zaggs.com (generated from abraham@keysupplier.com) retry timeout exceeded------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------Return-path: <vrroark@freemail.ru>Received: from [220.157.245.77] (port=3648 helo=localhost.localdomain)by host.zaggs.com with smtp (Exim 4.63)(envelope-from <vrroark@freemail.ru>)id 1HiU0X-0006Xu-7rfor abraham@keysupplier.com; Mon, 30 Apr 2007 12:25:06 +0100Message-ID: <10fb01c78b19$683b6042$8bc8505a@freemail.ru>From: Noticeable <vrroark@freemail.ru>To: abraham@keysupplier.comSubject: I am 79 years young!Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2007 14:19:48 +0300MIME-Version: 1.0Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0000_9E7D5C31.01A57A34"X-Priority: 3X-MSMail-Priority: NormalX-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express V6.00.2900.2180X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180This is a multi-part message in MIME format.------=_NextPart_000_0000_9E7D5C31.01A57A34Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A few words about HGH LifeI have been taking HGH Life for five weeks and there is a noticeable improvementin me overall. Waking up without muscular pain is the most obvious! WhenI run out, I shall be ordering as much as my pension will allow. I am inEngland and am 79 years young!Order HGH Life online ------=_NextPart_000_0000_9E7D5C31.01A57A34Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"><HTML><HEAD><META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; =charset=3Diso-8859-1"><META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2900.2912" name=3D"GENERATOR"></HEAD><BODY text=3D#000000 bgColor=3D#ffffff><font size=3D"3" face=3D"Times New Roman"><p align=3D"center"><font =face=3D"Arial" color=3D"#009900" size=3D"5"><strong>A few =words about HGH Life™</strong></font></p><p align=3D"center"><font face=3D"Arial">I have been taking HGH =Life™ <strong>for five weeks </strong>and there is a noticeable =improvement in me overall. Waking up without muscular pain is the most =obvious! When I run out, I shall be ordering as much as my pension will =allow. I am in England and am <strong>79 years =young</strong>!"</font></p><p align=3D"center"><a href=3D"http://worldwdefull.com"><strong><font =face=3D"Arial" color=3D"#ff6600" size=3D"4">Order HGH Life™ =online</font></strong></a></p></font></BODY></HTML>------=_NextPart_000_0000_9E7D5C31.01A57A34--
I can confirm that the person who is doing this IS NOT using the 'nobody' user because I am keeping a spam_log for that.
How else is a user able to use our server for spam? Please help as I would like to get this sorted ASAP.
I was wondering if anyone has any methods to stop spammers? Currently i am keeping watch on the mail queue and making sure nothing unsual. I have in WHM configuration setup to not allow more 200 mail messages per account per hour but for some reason it will hit thousands. WHMCS does seem to suspend them automatically or maybe its because of WHM BUT only when its too late.
Have a persistent spammer who kept emailing my clients, even non existent domain accounts and getting the bounced emails to be send to a particular yahoo address. I tried to block in all ways but can't seem to stop him. His spams are from all over the world. Any suggestions?
Is there any way to stop spammers from spoofing my address? I've had issues ever since I started this server with getting bounced spam where the "From:" field was (jibberish)@mydomain.com which was annoying but not that constant.
I came online this morning to check my mail and had over 1200 e-mails and all of them have "online@wellsfargo.com" as the "From:" address, but the message-ID has my domain name in it..
Quote:
------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------
Return-path: <nobody@host.mydomain.com> Received: from nobody by host.mydomain.com with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from <nobody@host.mydomain.com>) id 1Hju9b-0002y3-TH for lwilder1999@yahoo.com; Fri, 04 May 2007 05:32:43 -0400 To: lwilder1999@yahoo.com Subject: Update Your Account Records From: Wells Fargo Online <online@wellsfargo.com> Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Message-Id: <E1Hju9b-0002y3-TH@host.mydomain.com> Date: Fri, 04 May 2007 05:32:43 -0400
There's gotta be some way (make that 1204.. just got 4 more bounces) to block spammers from doing this. Could someone help a newbie out?
I've been getting a lot of "Undeliverable" emails sent to my email address. On these messages, the spammer is using my email on the "From" part of the email...... So whenever he sends out spam, the person(s) getting spammed think it's from me..... And the thousands of Undeliverable email error messages are also sent to me.
Is there a way to stop this from Happening? ....... Besides changing my email address?
possible way to stop spammers from forging my website's domain in the "From" or "Reply To" fields? I just received 1700 bounced e-mails in my inbox from spammers using my domain in the "From" address. Really freaking annoying, and I don't want my website to get blacklisted.
Any thoughts, or opinions are welcome. Looking for options on how to stop this.
Recently I've started receiving spam that appears to originate from a hosted domain on my VPS. It appears to only be an issue with this website account and not the VPS generally.
I've disabled the IMAP service to ensure the spam was not being sent from the server. The spam continues which leaves the POP email accounts as a possibility or something else.
My hosting provider says it looks like email spoofing.
Someone seems to be using the address at foobar.com to send out spam. The method that he has employed is called email spoofing. Email spoofing is the practice of changing your name in email so that it looks like the email came from somewhere or someone else. However, you need not be concerned.
Individuals, who are sending "junk" email or "SPAM", typically want the email to appear to be from an email address that may not exist. This way the email cannot be traced back to the originator. The spammer is not using our server to send out spam, hence your email address will never be blacklisted.
There is really no way to prevent receiving a spoofed email. Remember that although your email address may have been spoofed this does not mean that the spoofer has gained access to your mailbox.
The following are headers of two spam emails. Both of these addresses are setup as forwarders and not actual email accounts. The spam came to our attention because it is being sent to addresses on foobar.com with headers as also originating from foobar.com
I changed the actual names for privacy host.vpsdomain.com [123.123.123.123] - VPS domain foobar.com - website account on VPS myemailaccount@gmail.com - address foobar forwarders send to
problem with spammers.. i installed bruteforce attack and apf but spammers still trying to use my mail server to spam.. bfa sending me 20-30 warning emails everyday like
Quote:
The remote system 200.83.230.214 was found to have exceeded acceptable login failures on xxxxxx; there was 62 events to the service exim. As such the attacking host has been banned from further accessing this system. For the integrity of your host you should investigate this event as soon as possible.
Executed ban command: /etc/apf/apf -d 200.83.230.214 {bfd.exim}
The following are event logs from 200.83.230.214 on service exim (all time stamps are GMT -0600):
this spammers causing to load cpu very hi and freeze my server sometimes.
is there any way i can setup to only allow authenticated users to access the mail server. or any idea..
im not a hosting company hosting my websites and im a poor guy can't hire server admin.. and i have search it on google could'nt found anything..
I have found some spammer hotlinking to my images to get his site crawled, I have modified the .htaccess to attempt and serve his hotlinking domain with a warning but it does not work...
My actual .htaccess file is the one below (it was created by wordpress automatically):
# BEGIN WordPress <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L] </IfModule>
I dont kmow too much what I am doing, following the tutorial here, http://altlab.com/htaccess_tutorial.html but the problem is that my .htacces already contains something created by wordpress that to me looks like garbage as I don't understand the meaning.
I dont know if I should add the lines inside the <IfModule mod_write.c> or outside them as I have done.
I dont know if it is ok to have two times Rewrite Engine On
PS: When I added the lines I describe above, my site also stopped displaying the images, I had stopped everyone including myself from hotlinking them. I only want to stop certain domain. or even better, my ideal solution is to WHITELIST my domain names (I have two using hotlinkg to those images), but I will settle for blacklist if it is easier.
I was on my visitors on AWstats, and when looking up most of the top IPs (the ones that viewed the most pages), most of them were associated with IANA, and tagged as spam/hacker IPs.
Of course, I've blocked all of those IPs with my .htaccess file, but how can I further protect my server from such threats? How can I rid my server of these spammers/hackers?
Someone posted some code similar to below, I made modifications or two after trying to detect PHP "nobody" users, after dumping a few printenv I found PHP exports PWD when calling an external program such sendmail. Basically the PWD will show the user directory that is coming from, which is enough to detect who is sending SPAM even as nobody! It's not 100% secure in that they could wipe /var/log/formmail but I don't imagine any spam will notice the logger, they presume any cPanel server (or other CP for that matter) is the same.
mv /usr/sbin/sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail2 pico /usr/bin/sendmail (paste the below code into it) chmod +x /usr/bin/sendmail echo > /var/log/formmail chmod 777 /var/log/formail
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
# use strict; use Env; my $date = `date`; chomp $date; open (INFO, ">>/var/log/formmail.log") || die "Failed to open file ::$!"; my $uid = $>; my @info = getpwuid($uid); if($REMOTE_ADDR) { print INFO "$date - $REMOTE_ADDR ran $SCRIPT_NAME at $SERVER_NAME"; } else {
trying to find a spammer on my system, who just sent out and is still sending out 4000+ emails...
i have a centos vps with whm.
looked at exim_mainlog, there's nothign telling. the message body is visible, but the links it points to arent' hosted by me. there is no return address, its sending mail as nobody. phpsuexec is not an option.
I have deciated windows 2008 server and from last 2 days there is some thing which is using our smtp server to send spam its like we get thousand of spam emails qued in our outbound que, although our security is really high, such as smtp authtenication (open relay) and other options are already enable and we ran anti virus scan too but nothing found.
I wonder if there is anyone else out there who face such problem and how did you stop?
As hosting providers, it is important to follow the standard industry supported AUP/TOS agreements to keep spammers in their place. Do you believe spammers should be able to buy their way to hosting? Some hosting providers have allowed spammers to stay by allowing them to pay a premium hosting fee.
I've been on yet-another crusade this morning..and have a few questions for the..umm.."general" hosting audience.
We live in odd times. If you told me that script kiddies might be able to completely comprimise a server via php..or that spammers are now using the webserver *itself* to send spam a few years ago..I would have laughed. This is no laughing matter.
A concept of privacy comes into play..and I'm curious how many of you handle it. Joe pays me for a account..agrees to my TOS/AUP..and starts uploading files. The way I see it..we have many ways of dealing with scripts that do bad things. It seems to me, though...this may be considered "spying" on our customers.
If we have a script..say..that runs every fifteen minutes..and looks for these scripts..wouldn't that be considered spying?
Or would this be something we should just bury in our aup/tos that this might happen? I have read and agreed to quite a few of those AUP/TOS things..and I can't remember even one time even a mention that files that I upload to the server may be scanned or inspected..before allowing the file to be placved on the server.
Never..not once.
However...this may have changed. If you've ever tried to get even a simple Perl script to work on a Cpanel server...you probably understand that many safeguards are there for the sake of everybody else on the server...and may prevent you from doing what you want to do with the script(s).
At the same time..though..it seems to fly in the face of common sense that many script packages available today are inherently insecure. Chmod 777 files and directories? Even in the times we live in today and know this is a very, very bad idea?
Yet..there seem to be even more like this today than ever before.
>>I mention this from first hand expereince. One of the many magazines I get had a article detailing the trials the author was having trying to get Simple Groupware working on a vps.
yesterday..I noticed a post with a person wanting something installed on a production server. Not only was the program a beta..but..just like Simple Groupware..looked horribly insecure.
In retrospect...I can remember the very first php script I ever used. The year was 1996..and this was my first Cpanel shared account. I even remember having to add *.php to the mime types.
It installed without a hitch..and..coming from the Perl world I had spent many years in..and many hours getting those scripts to work..it seemed almost like a miracle.
It seems, as hosts, there are a few ways we can go at this.
1) Modify the ftp server so it inspects files
2) Have a program that looks for things..much like rkhunter does.
3) A front-end for all scripts..perhaps MySQL as well..that enforces rulesets..for restricted content..or resource allocations.
7. Enter the IP you found at "Server Status" and enter it at ws.arin.net to get the proper CIDR which you can easily add to your CSF deny hosts file (which is open in another window)
Just got alerted that my server is being used to send spam. Here is the information the datacenter gave me:
[information .....]
NOTE: I changed the real domain name and IP only.
Is there an expert who can help me decipher this? How do I find the culprit? My provider is threatening to shut me down and sink all my clients with the ship!
I am running the latest WHM and cpanel server, fyi.
I am failed to catch this spammer, please help me to find out the source. There is no such domain on my server. User is using localhost in smtp, I am using mail enable standard on my server ....
A lot is known about e-mail spammers, both due to lots of investigations into them and due to some "ex-spammers" talking about what they've done. And it's widely known that they're using infected PCs now.
But what about comment spam? I've been dealing with it a lot at work, and am noticing some oddities. A good amount tends to come from countries where labor can be had cheaply, and watching logs on pages with captchas suggests that they're doing it slowly enough that they're probably just doing it by hand. Unlike the scripts I'd been used to (which would just hammer out POST requests to forms as fast as they could), some spammers are now loading pages on which the comment form resides, waiting a few seconds, and then submitting the spam with a sensible HTTP referrer -- it's as if someone is actually sitting there and copying-and-pasting spam. It seems really odd to me that someone is actually sitting there manually posting spam, though.
Comment spam tends to come from a few areas of the world -- the poverty-stricken parts of Asia; Russia, Africa, and Latin America in particular -- and yet it's often hyping products in other parts of the world. Has anyone found what I'm thinking are US-owned shops paying third-world spammers? Is that what's actually happens?
And other nonsense reigns. Some of the spam getting posted to my employer's site links to sites that, according to whois records, have never existed. A LOT of other spam has egregious formatting errors -- BBCode on a site that doesn't support it, or malformed links (mysite.com/www.spamsite.com) posted over and over again. It's like they're either so clueless that they have no idea that their spam doesn't work, or that they're just being paid by post or something and so they don't even care if the links work.
Has anyone (not necessarily personally) ever tracked down exactly what this "industry" is up to? Even though it seems like a simple extension of e-mail spam, there's a lot of odd behavior that makes me think it's actually quite different, and now I'm really curious.
I have two domains that I haven't set email up for yet. One is hosted on a good plan that uses cPanel. The other has some not-so-user-friendly interface.
Either case, I haven't set up email because I don't know what to seperate between truth and fiction. I know of the front end measures of cloaking an email link to your site using hex or some other hack so it doesn't show up to spiders and bots.
I also heard a rumor that using generic "webmaster@" on any domain is a surefire way for these bots to spam through. So is that true? Should I name my link like "thiswebmaster@" instead ? (or to that effect?)
What can I do to prevent too much (relatively speaking I guess) spam coming in?
I'm receiveing tons of "Mail Delivery Failure" emails lately, like hundreds a day.
Today I opened a few to check what's going on... And basically these emails say a message could not be delivery due to a random error.
What intrigued me was that emails from my domain were the alledged sender or were on the reply-to field.
Those email accounts not even exist under my domain. And the spam messages were not sent from my server as it's clear in the body of the delivery error email.
So the situation is I have a spammer sending out thousands of emails a day impersonating my domain.
You can see a copy of the emails I'm getting here: http://cl1p.net/delivery_error
Why's the spammer doing this? Why the need to impersonate my domain?
And how can I stop him?
I think I might have a problem with my SPF rules, too loose! How to tighten it?
On my domain access logs, I see a spammer using many different IPs to join my top site list with fake emails. At the end of every line, it contains I am SPAMER! How can I configure htaccess to block this spammer when a request contains that text?
I just opened my "catch-all" email pop account that sends me everything addressed to my server that doesn't have an assigned email address. I check it every few days.
Over 4,500 undeliverables. Someone is using mydomain as a phony return address in different forms (gleskit@mydomain.com, peterepred@mydomain.com etc.) If I got over 4,500 undeliverables, these lowlife creeps must have sent innumerable thousands or tens of thousands using my domain as a return address.
What really stinks is that I've had a bunch of users complain that they're not getting usual auto-messages from my forum software. Come to find out that my domain is now banned from at least one major ISP, I'm guessing probably more by now.
The website I run depends heavily on VOLUNTARY auto-communications and updates. For example, one mailing list I maintain have over 4,800 members who've signed up for updates. It uses other feeds and email functions as well.
Am I to understand that any jackass spammer can hose a server this way, with no redress on the part of the innocent party? Also, how am I going to get back in the good graces of the ISPs and personal anti-spam programs that have now blacklisted my server for no reason?
Besides contacting all of the larger ones personally, I wouldn't even know where to begin addressing this.
Is it possible that some nasty geek with a spam program can just ruin a server in this fashion?
Just checked the account again.
In the ten minutes it took me to write the above post, I just got 54 more undeliverables.
Would you be happy to host your BUSINESS (i.e. servers etc) at a datacenter or ISP that's known for ignoring spam complaints?
I am just curious because I already submitted SEVERAL spam complaints to servercentral.net but they simple ignore it. A big anti-spam list such as Spamcop not even bother to try and submit spam complaints to them and purge such complaints.
abuse#servercentral.net@devnull.spamcop.net
In my opinion it's a high risk to host your servers at a company that ignore spam complaints because many of their IP addresses will eventually be on spam block lists. (And because IP addresses are "recycled" I won't be happy to get IP addresses assigned to a server that was previously used by a spammer)
I have a small VPS, with few websites each one with very low visitors in average less than100 visits per day
CentOS 2.6.9 Plesk PHP 5.1.6 Apache/2.2.3
Few days ago some Forum spammers signed up to one of the forums. One of them: stopforumspam.com/ipcheck/212.178.2.3
Today I was away for few 5 hours after I came back I recived a notice from my script that "SMF could not connect to the database"
I checked and I noticed almost all of my sites are not responding. MySql was working. A script on remote server which uses mysql from my server loaded but with dealy
------------------Next step------------------- log to SSH # uptime # 12:XX:XX up XXX days, 5:06, X users, load average: 10.58, 8.86, 5.86
Avoid thinkhost.com, they've decided to promote their affiliate program by spamming competitors. We found this ticket wasting spacei n our helpdesk and should be a good indication of their ethics: Quote:
Hello, I'm Vladislav Davidzon, the Executive Director of ThinkHost, Inc - I'd like to invite you to join our high converting partner program. $100 commissions! 2nd tier cash - up to $65 per account comprehensive partner interface 10 year cookie + IP + session tracking Great range of creatives Coupons to give away Monthly payments Amazing EPC rates - an industry leader! Solid company, established in 1999 We offer unlimited domains, unlimited databases and much more. ThinkHost Inc, has been providing web hosting services to the world since 1999 - we're also a "green" host - powered by 100% renewable energy. We'd love to have you join our program! You can sign up/learn more here:[url] .. or if you have any questions; I'd be very happy to address them! I look forward to hearing from you soon! Vladislav Davidzon Executive Director ThinkHost, Inc 14525 SW Millikan Way #17760 Beaverton, OR 97005-2343[url]
I think someone has successfully make my server to send out emails. Why i know this?
it's because I saw many return emails saying that the emails sent out to their inbox are consider spam. I mean a lot for instance within 1 second, there are more than 10 mails.
Can someone help explains me how I can find the culprit and fix the problem?
