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 How does GulfTel protect my email account from spam?
GulfTel protects your email account from spam in three ways:
- We subscribe to services that maintain databases of spammers. We use these databases to block spammers when they connect to GulfTel's email servers.
- We use our own custom filters to detect and block unsolicited bulk email and email that that comes from invalid addresses.
- We offer a customizable content filter called SpamAssassin that you can enable and configure on each of your email accounts.
How do I use the customizable content filter to filter spam?
To turn on and configure SpamAssassin for your email accounts, please read this step-by-step guide. SpamAssassin can be configured on each and every email account you have with GulfTel at no added cost.
What databases of spammers are used to block spam?
GulfTel subscribes to three services that maintain blacklists of IP addresses. These IPS are blocked from sending email to GulfTel customers.
- www.mail-abuse.com: MAPS is a company dedicated to stopping spam at its source. We subscribe to the MAPS RBL+ Master Service. This service combines access to MAPS' four most popular blacklists:
- www.spamhaus.org: We use the Spamhaus Block List, a realtime database of verified spam sources.
- www.ordb.org: We use ORDB which tracks open relays. Open relays are mail servers that allow anonymous spammers to send email.
What happens if someone sends me mail and it is rejected?
If our email servers rejected a message, the sender should have received a message (bounce) telling them exactly why the email they sent was rejected. It is important to read this rejection closely.
- If the reject says "550 Client host [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] blocked using rbl-plus.mail-abuse.org", then the sender's computer (or the email server that the sender used) is on one of the MAPS blacklists. The sender will need to contact MAPS to be removed. Click to see if an IP is on one of the MAPS lists.
- If the reject says "550 Client host [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] blocked using sbl.spamhaus.org", then the sender's computer (or the email server that the sender used) is on the Spamhaus SBL blacklist. The sender will need to contact Spamhaus to be removed. Click to see if an IP is on Spamhaus' list.
- If the reject says "550 Client host [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] blocked using relays.ordb.org", then the sender's computer (or the email server that the sender used) is on the the ORDB blacklist. The sender will need to contact ORDB to be removed. Click to see if an IP is on ORDB's lists.
- If the reject says "550 Exceeded virus threshold" or "550 Suspected trojan on client", then the sender's computer (or the email server that the sender used) has been temporarily blocked by our custom filters because the IP address was seen sending either infected mail or is suspected of being infected with a trojan that is sending mail. This block is temporary and will be removed at a regularly scheduled interval.
- If the reject says "550 Exceeded message threshold" or "550 Exceeded connection threshold" or "550 Exceeded bulk email threshold", then the sender's computer (or the email server that the sender used) has been temporarily blocked by our custom filters because the IP address was seen sending bulk email to our customers. This block is temporary and will be removed at a regularly scheduled interval.
- If the reject says "504 : Helo command rejected: need fully-qualified hostname" then the sender's mail server is not configured to introduce itself as required by RFC (standards maintained by IETF). The best way to remedy this is to contact the sender and let them know that the HELO sent by their mail server is invalid. If this doesn't work, please contact support.
Is it possible that mail I send could be blocked by the server's filters?
Yes, though this should be rare and may indicate that your computer has been compromised by a spammer. GulfTel has set a few thresholds on outgoing customer e-mail because of the alarming number of customers whose computers had been compromised and used to send hundreds of thousands of messages through our own e-mail servers. Don't let your computer become a spam zombie!
Most users do not send enough outgoing email to trigger our thresholds, however, if your outgoing email has been blocked in error, please contact support.
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