New Spam getting through my Spark xtra account

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Smpl Mnmlst
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#2517472 5-Jul-2020 09:32

FineWine:

eracode:

I’m pleased you brought this up - Yep, been getting those and a lot of other spam starting to get through again too. A step backward by Spark/xtra here. It had been quite good for the past year or so.

Yep almost to the year since this topic was last posted into:

27-Jul-2019 19:54 till 4-Jul-2020 10:10

All three of us plus the wife of one, so now that makes 4 in my family, that I know of, are getting these Tracking spam emails.

I also forgot to mention BMW & Bitcoin ones have started up again after a year of being filtered out or silent.

EDIT: spelling

Same here.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

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FineWine

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Nurse (R)

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#2517473 5-Jul-2020 09:34

Bung:
FineWine:

Yep almost to the year sense this topic was last posted into:

27-Jul-2019 19:54 till 4-Jul-2020 10:10

All three of us plus the wife of one, so now that makes 4 in my family, that I know of, are getting these Tracking spam emails.

I also forgot to mention BMW & Bitcoin ones have started up again after a year of being filtered out or silent.

Are these just random or are your family on an email list?

Despite the best efforts of a friend in Christchurch to cc everyone we hardly get any spam on our xtra acct. That goes back years.

Yea thought of that and all of this sort of roughly started around the time of a new arrival in the family where we are all being sent updates via https://tinybeans.com/ but I have checked them out via https://haveibeenpwned.com/ and that comes up all good, plus we are not the only ones as above posts indicate.

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

1101

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#2517868 6-Jul-2020 10:48

Honestly, expecting zero spam to get through is completely unrealistic

Do you really want to go back to the old issue of too many false positives & legit email being blocked or marked as spam.
a few spams a day is no big deal, just delete them .

eracode

Smpl Mnmlst
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#2518160 6-Jul-2020 18:40

1101:

Honestly, expecting zero spam to get through is completely unrealistic

Do you really want to go back to the old issue of too many false positives & legit email being blocked or marked as spam.
a few spams a day is no big deal, just delete them .

I don’t think anyone here is saying they expect zero spam. The point we are discussing is: a year ago Spark didn’t have spam well-controlled. They pulled-finger and for the last 12 months it has been good, with only an acceptable low base-rate of spam getting through. However in the last week or two, they have slipped back towards where they were last July.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

cheshirecat

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#2518172 6-Jul-2020 19:00

Anti-spam is a game of whack-a-mole. As soon as you get a good strategy for one attack, the spammers develop another; so you'll always see things swing back and forth as new methods of attack and defence are developed.

This latest amount of spam appears to be highly polymorphic in content, source and subject originating short-lived AWS instances on temporary IP addresses and domains that nevertheless have valid DNS and are hard to (programmatically) distinguish from real notification emails. Just as with virus detection, methods of detecting these will appear soon but for the time being the pendulum has swung a little in the wrong direction.

The other problem is the false-positives cause more customer annoyance and complaints than false-negatives, so the threshold is likely set relatively high (though there is the spam folder for the middle-ground items). Also, it likely that you don't know how many are being stopped before you see them - the false-negative rate may be far lower than you think.

1101

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#2519037 8-Jul-2020 10:23

eracode:

However in the last week or two, they have slipped back towards where they were last July.

My xtra email a/c isnt being overrun with spam .
I might get 1 or 2 spams a day, then may have weeks with near zero spam.

So the question is, how many spams a day on average is unacceptable ?
It could be that its only a few a/c's being heavily targeted by spammers & most other xtra a/c's arnt having the issue.

I'll be the first to admit Xtra's spam filtering isnt good . But I'd rather have a few spams than legit email blocked, and xtra did have a big issue
blocking too many legit emails not that long ago . That was so bad , the story was in the newspapers

Xtra's email service has been problematic all the way back since it was hosted by hotmail (then later yahoo).
Honestly, expecting a great email service from xtra is futile. Thats not going to happen , never has, never was .
Want a great email service , then you'll need to look elsewhere .

Im surprised spark have kept this email service going. Its obviously something they dont care that much about . Vodafone and other ISP's
killed off their similar email services .
I suspect the issue is we are only getting what spark/extra paid for, the cheapest possible . :-)

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Nurse (R)

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#2674184 14-Mar-2021 10:59

It is that time again at @xtra.co.nz as they are being bombarded with spam.

This time it is all about renewing your subscription to Symantec Norton anti-virus. I personally have received over 50 emails since the last week in February and 3 of my relatives with xtra accounts about the same. Some are being picked up by Spark but the little devils keep creeping through. This is occurring about every 2nd day.

Becoming annoying for me as I am the one that has to go into everyone's web based email accounts and spam these buggers.

More server training I think Spark.

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

1101

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#2674719 15-Mar-2021 09:19

Ive recieved some of those Norton spams

I dont know whats up with your xtra email, but I only got maybee 2 of the Norton spams
The amount of spam coming into my xtra email a/c is still minimal .

eracode

Smpl Mnmlst
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#2674721 15-Mar-2021 09:23

1101:

Ive recieved some of those Norton spams

I dont know whats up with your xtra email, but I only got maybee 2 of the Norton spams
The amount of spam coming into my xtra email a/c is still minimal .

Me too. Having been so critical of them a year or so ago, I’m currently pretty impressed with Spark/xtra’s handling of spam.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

cheshirecat

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#2674755 15-Mar-2021 10:32

eracode:

Me too. Having been so critical of them a year or so ago, I’m currently pretty impressed with Spark/xtra’s handling of spam.

Nice to be appreciated 😁

There's a fair amount of work going on behind the scenes, particularly improving security and capacity (the post-Covid work-remotely world is a big jump in capacity requirements), but of course there's always room for improvement and sometimes someone is unlucky enough to get hit disproportionately. Filtering vs. spammers is a bit of a pendulum but it looks as if it's swung our way a bit more recently.

A quick glance at logs appears to show a lot of this sort of thing is being stopped but obviously not all of it.

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Nurse (R)

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#2674771 15-Mar-2021 11:15

cheshirecat:

Nice to be appreciated 😁

There's a fair amount of work going on behind the scenes, particularly improving security and capacity (the post-Covid work-remotely world is a big jump in capacity requirements), but of course there's always room for improvement and sometimes someone is unlucky enough to get hit disproportionately. Filtering vs. spammers is a bit of a pendulum but it looks as if it's swung our way a bit more recently.

A quick glance at logs appears to show a lot of this sort of thing is being stopped but obviously not all of it.

Since posting yesterday the server filters have picked up/stopped 4 more Norton anti-virus spam and 1, 1 & 2 for my relatives. So yes the filtering is learning and working, so probably just a bit slow on the uptake😀.

Looking at the email addresses and the other stuff in the raw source you have your work cut out (for you).

Well done to the team.

PS: as I was replying to this post one just got through at 1106

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

cheshirecat

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#2674837 15-Mar-2021 12:52

FineWine:

Since posting yesterday the server filters have picked up/stopped 4 more Norton anti-virus spam and 1, 1 & 2 for my relatives. So yes the filtering is learning and working, so probably just a bit slow on the uptake😀.

Presumably you're counting the number in the Spam folder? That's the 'probable spam' (greymail) classification; you won't see all the ones dropped in the 'definite spam' classification as they never end up in your mailbox at all. So it's hard for you to see the true effects of the AI learning.

These things really are flooding the Internet :(. However, at least you can be relieved that Xtramail is not backed by Exchange

antonknee

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#2674853 15-Mar-2021 13:26

Interesting reading - my employer has the opposite issue ie our very legitimate emails are aggressively filtered by Spark/Xtra. We get countless customers contacting us advising that some of our emails aren't coming through to them - and they are all @xtra.co.nz. We send three different emails (ecommerce process - order confirmation, order processing, invoice) and only 1 out of 3 (the order confirmation) will ever make it through.

cheshirecat

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#2675041 15-Mar-2021 15:49

antonknee:

Interesting reading - my employer has the opposite issue ie our very legitimate emails are aggressively filtered by Spark/Xtra. We get countless customers contacting us advising that some of our emails aren't coming through to them - and they are all @xtra.co.nz. We send three different emails (ecommerce process - order confirmation, order processing, invoice) and only 1 out of 3 (the order confirmation) will ever make it through.

You should try to get a customer to raise the issue with Spark (if coming from a Spark customer it will have more weight), preferably providing samples of the incorrectly-filtered messages (with headers of course). Also, check the messages Envelope Sender and From header are correct for your domain, and verify your SPF, DKIM and DMARC are correct for the source of the message. Sometimes SPF records can get too complex, or have lame includes (causing a fail), or not include the correct subnets when messages are send by a third party on your behalf. Also, check for embedded image links in the message that are hosted on a tracking site that is known to also handle spam. You might also like to ensure the sent message includes a List-Unsubscribe header if appropriate. Apologies if this is teaching egg-sucking to grannies.

Legitimate billing and order processing is rarely blocked and when it is it is usually down to one or more of these indicators

1101

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#2675347 16-Mar-2021 10:54

antonknee:

Interesting reading - my employer has the opposite issue ie our very legitimate emails are aggressively filtered by Spark/Xtra. ...

thats where you cant have it both ways. :-)

Either a spam filter so strict it blocks legit emails
or a relaxed spam filter that lets spams through.

The external Spam Filtering service we use dont block based of SPF etc, as they found too many legit senders simply havn't setup SPF etc (and they all would be otherwise blocked) .
So , I guess thats why seemingly obvious fake Norton emails get through Xtra's spam filter . Need to have spam filters 'loose' enough to let legit emails through .

The issue with Xtra blocking legit company/client emails is no where near as bad as it once was (from what Ive seen)

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