Lotus Notes Spam

Tags: : Spam

I noticed a lot of these similar spam variants today.



Here is a sample from the message body:

augme nting  tilte d  rollb ar  preco ok  machi nelik e  remin iscen
ce  catab asis  scler enchy ma  polyt echni c  blemi shes  ecume nicis
ts  hawki shnes s  musse d  nemes es  shudd ery  mean  slash ed  

The spammers randomly put a space every 5 characters, making none of the words recognizable. My guess is they are targeting content filters and fingerprint algorithms like the one SpamSentinel uses. Here is the message with the space removed:

augmenting  tilted  rollbar  precook  machinelike  reminiscence
catabasis  sclerenchyma  polytechnic  blemishes  ecumenicists  
hawkishness  mussed  nemeses  shuddery  mean  slashed  

So where is the spam sales message?
I checked the subject, and it is more of the same:

Subject: motiv ation s  colle gian  editr ess

I finally found it in the From alias:
"Cheap C1alis on www.gg25.net" <radiological@michelgr.com>

They want you to see that website and load it. I tried the URL, which loads a "Canadian Pharmacy" website selling Viagra, Cialis and all the rest. Who knows if they will actually send any products after taking your money? Their shopping cart did not use HTTPS. Anyone who buys from this site (or others like it) has two problems: erectile dysfunction and brain dysfunction, IMHO.

Posted by Frank Paolino At 11:35 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Tags: : SpamSentinel

We are testing on all of our internal SMTP servers a new service called SpamSentinel Reputation. It is designed to stop about 60% of traffic at HELO, reducing bandwidth and server CPU utilization significantly. It is mostly designed to immediately stop "zombie" computers, which send 100% spam. This means there will be no false positives from this service.

Those messages that are not from 100% spam sources get processed via SpamSentinel, examining content as well as worldwide email patterns.

As this is designed to improve SpamSentinel, there is no additional cost for this software for existing customers. Our first rollout is to customers who process more than 50,000 messages per server per day. This service acts effectively like an "appliance" but without the extra hardware or the false positives.


Here is a sample from our main inbound SMTP server (our SMTP 10 record):

SS Reputation blocks 60% of messages at HELO, The remaining messages, about 44K are processed by SpamSentinel on the server, filtering off 99.2% of the 60% that remain. The overall block rate is 99.63% (397/107,661)

Most of these messages are from zombie servers. The net result is 60% reduction in bandwidth and saving server CPU.



Overall block rate is 99.63%

Posted by Frank Paolino At 9:20 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

Tags: : IBM

IBM has just released hotifx 851HF419 for SPR# JSDS7VPGVV

This problem relates to Domino servers crashing. It only affects 8.5 servers (both 32 and 64 bit):

Your Lotus Domino 8.5.1 server on Microsoft Windows crashes during cvsConvertHTMLToRichText during the conversion of a HTML message to Rich text.
(see IBM Support Portal)

This hotfix is only necessary if you have Transaction Logging enabled:

Contact IBM support if you are experiencing unexplained 8.5.1 crashes and reference this SRP or hotfix number:
 851HF419 for SPR# JSDS7VPGVV

Posted by Frank Paolino At 9:23 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Tags: : SpamSentinel

Good news... we have found the problem and shared it with IBM.

Problem

Your Lotus Domino 8.5.1 server on Microsoft Windows crashes during cvsConvertHTMLToRichText during the conversion of a HTML message to Rich text. This issue has been seen with customers running Lotus Notes Traveler, Maysoft SpamSentinel (third party), and can potentially occur with other tasks as well.

(see IBM Support Portal)


The culprit turns out to be Transaction Logging.
It seems that the Transaction logging "steps on" some memory. Shutting it off stops the crashes. I know this is a performance issue and that customers like to have this on, but as a workaround turning it off stops the crashing. The downside is restarts after crashing take longer for consistency checks.



IBM has a hotfix 851 #389  SPR - JSDS7VPGVV   which stops the crashes using a workaround, too.


A final fix should arrive shortly according to Nick Orrick from IBM.

BTW, Nick was great to work with at IBM. He took our calls last night at 9 PM. Once he was able to reproduce the problem on his test servers, he started working on a fix right away.

Posted by Frank Paolino At 7:25 PM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (3) |      

Tags: : Email

If your Lotus Notes email server goes down or is inaccessible from the internet due to connectivity failures, our MX Failover Service will queue your e-mail messages automatically until your mail server comes back online.

Here is what the MX Failover Service offers:

• Retention of all incoming email
• No "delivery failure reports" or "bounced messages" sent to your customers
• Phone call (or SMS) notification to you about the problem
• Mail will only be sent through our servers if there is an outage on your site
• All mail will be filtered for spam and viruses

We will call you or SMS text you notifying you of an on-premise problem that needs your attention. So if your Exchange or Domino server stops accepting mail, that mail will be redirected to our server and we will call you to tell you that you have an outage!  How is that for service?  

Now you can relax on your weekends. If there is a problem, you won't come into work on Monday morning with an office full of unhappy users!


Here is short 1 minute video explaining MX Failover:





To register for the MX Failover Service (at no cost to current SpamSentinel customers) fill out this short form and we will email you when we are ready to accept mail, usually within one hour during business hours!

Click here to register for the MX Failover service


Here is a direct link to the video:
http://www.screencast.com/t/YWFkMjNk

MX Failover is a product of MayFlower Software.

Posted by Frank Paolino At 9:45 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (4) |      

Tags: : Lotusphere

This Lotusphere, as in past years, we had our "booth buddies" help out on the Showcase floor. Business partners, customers and our designated charity spent time at our booth to tell their story of their experiences with SpamSentinel.

A heartfelt THANK YOU to all who helped tell our story. We really appreciate the diversity of people, companies and countries represented.

Business Partners

Donova.se (Sweden)
Donova is anchoring our European hosted SpamSentinel customers as a primary MX gateway.
Mats Jansson
Fredrik Sandblom

Castlebreck (Canada)
Colin Breckles

GoldenNotes  (United States)
Paul Goldenburg

BusinessCom  (Denmark)
John Schmidt

In://ForM  (France)
Jerome Deniau

Nashen Technologies  (Canada)
David Provencher



Customers

Imerys   (USA)
Dave Bailey  - Dave helped enormously by sharing actual experience using our hosted platform in conjunction with our on-premise solution. He had the Imerys Case Study available as a take-away piece, too.  Dave's management likes how much our cloud offering (hosted SpamSentinel) reduces his network bandwidth substantially.

Milliken & Company  (USA)
Bob Warth - Bob shared support stories with other attendees, explaining how having the cell phone numbers of our support staff makes him comfortable that he will have immediate support whenever he needs it.  (Bob would never  wait 24-48 hours for a call back and can't understand why anyone would put up with waiting that long).

Rich Truex (USA)
Rich was a customer from Rawlings Sporting Goods for 5 years. He always made suggestions for product improvements, many of which were adopted into the product. I can't print some of his colorful spam stories here, but suffice it to say that content filtering was not a spam blocking option for an organization that sells "balls", so he turned to SpamSentinel, which did not have the false positive problem of his previous solution!



Charity

The Salvation Army  (worldwide)
Eric Petersen - Eric handed out The Salvation Army case study about spam blocking in 50 countries to keep their Notes email clean with SpamSentinel.  Eric appreciates that even though we donated a worldwide site license of SpamSentinel, we treat The Salvation Army with as much care and attention as we give to our paying customers.


MayFlower Software

Allison Cote
Frank Paolino
Nick McCann


A special thank you to Allison Cote for managing the booth, and coordinating the schedule of 12 booth buddies, and helping organize the opening "Tailgate Party" along with Sherpa Software and Permessa.

Allison Cote and Colin Breckles.



Paul Goldenburg,  Dave Bailey,  Jerome Deniau




Frank Paolino, Allison Cote, Colin Breckles. Fredrik Sandblom, Eric Petersen, Nick McCann.




Mats Jansson from Sweden, contemplating more hosted customers in Europe.

Posted by Frank Paolino At 12:16 PM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

Tags: : Lotusphere

At Lotusphere 2010,  Sherpa Software,  Permessa MayFlower combined forces to give away a Netbook computer to one lucky attendee.  People had to visit all 3 booths and be present at 3 PM Tuesday to win.
Here is the drawing:




And here is the lucky winner:


Sherpa Software, MayFlower Software, The Winner ( Brian Forsyth from Kennametal ) and Permessa all together.  

Partners working together. What a great thought!

Posted by Frank Paolino At 10:10 PM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Tags: : Lotusphere

We had over 170 attendees at our Tailgate party. The weather was great and we were shielded from the 50 MPH winds by the Swan Hotel.

Here is a picture of the party:
 

Posted by Frank Paolino At 9:11 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Tags: : Lotusphere

Just in time for Lotusphere, we are announcing an application to make the best support even better! We call it DirectConnect, a customer support application that we designed and wrote to let our customers connect directly to our support staff.

We are providing a Windows application that, once loaded, lets you connect with our staff, create support tickets that our staff see in real time, drag files for our inspection, and, uniquely, drag Notes documents from any database and they immediately appear on our servers with all the fields intact, including "$" fields, so we can inspect the document EXACTLY as you see them. We call this feature "Notes Teleport".

The is the opposite of most support organizations that make you hunt down the support staff. We don't hide our staff. We let you pick who you want to work with!



Take a look at how it works in this 2 minute video:



If you are a customer that wants access to this software, contact frank@maysoft.com and I will send it to you right away!

Posted by Frank Paolino At 10:45 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Tags: : Case Study

Case Study
	SpamSentinel Is the Anti-Spam Solution That Keeps On Giving to The Salvation Army A Large Installation Internationally with a Quick Implementation and Proven Results

The Challenges
• Previous negative experience – The Salvation Army tried two other anti-spam solutions, with poor results.
• Need for one size to fit all – The Salvation Army needed one solution for all 50 countries in which it operates.
• Quick implementation – Spam problems were increasing and needed to be addressed immediately.
• Tough times – Limited budgets required a generous sponsor.
• Minimal risk – Constant change demands a flexible anti-spam solution.



Company Background
The Salvation Army, an international religious and charitable movement, sought an accurate and easy-to-use anti-spam software solution for a low cost.

The Salvation Army User Configuration is:

• 50,000 employees;
• 30,000 computer users;
• 50 countries.

With SpamSentinel, The Salvation Army is benefiting daily from highly accurate blocking.



Previous Negative Experience
The Salvation Army found that SpamSentinel has a proven track record.

The Salvation Army had gone through the process of evaluating anti-spam software before but achieved poor results. It was important to the IT group to find a solution that was truly accurate. Previously, The Salvation Army used a plug-in solution for internal needs in conjunction with an external anti-spam solution.

Gethin Owen, IT Operations Manager of The Salvation Army, stated, “We used both of these competitive solutions for several years with limited results before trying SpamSentinel.”

Quick Implementation
A ten minute installation program.

When The Salvation Army was ready to implement SpamSentinel, the MayFlower support team completed the installation in an easy, screen sharing process.

Gethin Owen says, “We arranged for a telephone conference call with SpamSentinel technical support to walk us through the gateway installation. It only took us one day to get everything running. It was a simple and straightforward implementation.”

The Salvation Army reports that, after the simple implementation, it has continued to get superior service from the SpamSentinel support team. The SpamSentinel support team is quick to respond to any of the IT group’s email questions.


Tough Times
MayFlower Software donated SpamSentinel.

The Salvation Army IT group required a best-of-breed solution for its anti-spam solution globally, but budgets are tight across The Salvation Army. Finding a comprehensive solution for anti-spam software seemed improbable. The reality was that the IT group needed to find a provider that was willing to subsidize its anti-spam initiative.

Gethin Owen states, “Finding a good solution and a company willing to subsidize seemed like looking for a needle in a haystack. We were thrilled MayFlower Software donated their anti-spam solution because they were at the top of our list for a solution.”

Frank Paolino, President of MayFlower Software, made the decision to support The Salvation Army because he believes it is the right corporate mission for his company.

Frank Paolino relates, “I personally have been a long-time supporter of The Salvation Army. My family and I are out there each holiday season ringing the bells. It made perfect sense for our corporation to give back to such a worthy cause by donating SpamSentinel.”

The Results
After Implementation of SpamSentinel’s Server Solution

• Previous negative experience — The Salvation Army found that SpamSentinel has a proven track record.
• Need for one size to fit all — The Domino server solution is scalable for all 50 countries.
• Quick implementation — A ten minute installation program.
• Tough times — MayFlower Software donated SpamSentinel.
• Minimal risk — SpamSentinel is low maintenance and adapts to changing business needs.



The Bottom Line
The Salvation Army has found SpamSentinel to be a great match for its large user base, international requirements, resource limitations, and need for anti-spam accuracy. Meeting all these requirements certainly seems right from a business perspective. But does SpamSentinel give The Salvation Army a real ROI for the time and effort?

The ROI message The Salvation Army has to tell is one of staff productivity and the elimination of unnecessary anti-spam support calls to IT. For example, if a user gets 100 emails a day and even 10% of those emails are spam, the user is wasting about 10 minutes a day sorting through spam. If 30,000 users spend 10 minutes daily on spam, over 5,000 hours of company time are wasted each day. Although most organizations cannot track these staff efficiency numbers, this back-of-the-envelope analysis is still a powerful story for The Salvation Army.

Download the full case study here: www.maysoft.com

Posted by Frank Paolino At 9:16 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (0) |