Re: [GTALUG] Email problem and some observations.

On 07/14/2016 09:55 AM, ac via talk wrote:
On Thu, 14 Jul 2016 09:28:48 -0400 Alvin Starr via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
A bitof history to start off. Years ago we started putting spf records in our domains and email clients domains and that is mostly where things stuck. For the most part is was of little help but generally putting a correctlyconfigured SPF statement did not hurt.
spf records already help a lot with spam/abuse True enough but hype and initial exuberance did not quite pan out the way some claimed. But it does work and helps.
I recentlydiscovered DMARC and decided to implement it on my own domain as an experiment. DMARC has real interesting reporting, but many ISP's do not even respond to abuse@ so... we are a long way off from a perfect world :)
Sadly the usual addresses like postmaster and abuse make for an easy target for spammers so its the kind of address that gets quickly ignored. Postmaster is so bad the its almost all noise now.
Like your SPF v=spf1 mx a:mail.netvel.net ip4:54.236.96.217/32 -all many email servers will disregard even the -all (and the entire SPF)
I was looking at an email problem yesterday and got a message from a spam filtering service that my client uses. "1) The simplest, and since SPF is only beneficial to large corporate domains, we would suggest that they log into their DNS Providers site and delete their SPF record." With that kind of attitude its not surprising that SPF is used at all.
After running for a while and looking at the information that came back from the other dmarcians I noticed some interesting trends.
1) Some days there are lots of spam messages sent to google as someone on my domain (likely me). 2) There are not a whole lot of people who are honouring dmarc and sending status messages. nope... and there are soo many that do not even respond to direct complaints.. recently on RIPE anti-abuse, an abuse-c record addition failed, due to simply too many objections... - If people/society does not even want to accept responsibility for what they transmit - how will they to co-op with DMARC...
I cannot help all those that will not work within the system but enough people are using DMARC that it is causing problems for mail list operators so its gaining some traction.
3) Something in my network is sending mail to CheatCodes.com Here is a snippet from my dmarc log.
Wed, 06 Jul 2016 14:47:25 -0400 CheatCodes.com 12 Thu, 07 Jul 2016 19:59:59 -0400 google.com 2 Thu, 07 Jul 2016 19:59:59 -0400 Yahoo! Inc. 2 Fri, 08 Jul 2016 11:29:47 -0400 CheatCodes.com 10 Sun, 10 Jul 2016 17:19:04 -0400 CheatCodes.com 3 Mon, 11 Jul 2016 19:59:59 -0400 google.com 2 Mon, 11 Jul 2016 14:45:57 -0400 CheatCodes.com 12 Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:00:00 -0400 Microsoft Corp. 1 Tue, 12 Jul 2016 19:59:59 -0400 google.com 591 Tue, 12 Jul 2016 19:59:59 -0400 Yahoo! Inc. 8 Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:22:56 -0400 CheatCodes.com 13 Wed, 13 Jul 2016 19:59:59 -0400 google.com 785 Wed, 13 Jul 2016 14:49:03 -0400 CheatCodes.com 3
So about cheatcodes.com. hmm, looks like this could be a fake reverse zone for a private ip on your home pvt network? If you look at my headers I have a pvt range setup with a inaddr to cow.co.za :) - my DMARC would report "cow.co.za" on the sec gw 192.168. - otherwise you could have malware, either way - you should have fun figuring it out :)
DMARC reports the sending IP. and in my case the sending ip is my firewall. That is what got me going. I know it cannot be my laptop because that runs Linux and we all know that is impervious to hacks. OOPS. My android phones also run Linux(of sorts)... Possibly its time to re-evaluate this belief.
-- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016 10:37:32 -0400 Alvin Starr <alvin@netvel.net> wrote: <snip snip>
Tue, 12 Jul 2016 19:59:59 -0400 Yahoo! Inc. 8 Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:22:56 -0400 CheatCodes.com 13 Wed, 13 Jul 2016 19:59:59 -0400 google.com 785 Wed, 13 Jul 2016 14:49:03 -0400 CheatCodes.com 3 So about cheatcodes.com. hmm, looks like this could be a fake reverse zone for a private ip on your home pvt network? If you look at my headers I have a pvt range setup with a inaddr to cow.co.za :) - my DMARC would report "cow.co.za" on the sec gw 192.168. - otherwise you could have malware, either way - you should have fun figuring it out :) DMARC reports the sending IP. and in my case the sending ip is my firewall. That is what got me going.
in the report it's just a name - it can be anything - even "hello world" like mine is cow... i just had a thought... cheatcodes.com - do you have a teenager / gamer in the house :) oh, and btw - how are you blocking the outgoing ports? in theory you/malware/teenager/? would be opening example port 34912 (r high) --> 25 (or whatever)
I know it cannot be my laptop because that runs Linux and we all know that is impervious to hacks. OOPS. My android phones also run Linux(of sorts)... Possibly its time to re-evaluate this belief.
i would still choose a hardened *nix/bsd over anything else any day
participants (2)
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ac
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Alvin Starr