Spam Blacklist Check

A spam blacklist, or DNS blacklist, is a database of IP addresses that are known sources of spam used by email administrators to help block unsolicited emails. By configuring email servers to perform spam and website blacklist checks before accepting emails, you can block a large percentage of incoming spam.

Spam blacklist checks validate if email servers are listed in one of the spam blacklist databases.

It’s important to ensure your email domain does not become blacklisted, as this could signal the reputability of your domain has been significantly damaged. Knowing there’s an issue in the first place is key to discovering the root cause and fixing the problem.

Email blacklists are databases containing domain names, IP addresses, and email accounts linked with the distribution of spam. Most email servers and filtering solutions use blacklist monitoring solutions to quarantine spam materials before they can reach your inbox or browser.

You may be added to email blacklists for several reasons, including:

• An account has been hacked. The most frequent reason legitimate messages and email users are blacklisted is that their account has been compromised and is being used to send spam without the user’s knowledge.
• An account is sending too many outbound messages. A sudden spike in outbound emails is going to catch the attention of service providers, which can lead to an account being blacklisted until a removal process is completed.
  
• An account is receiving too many complaints. If an account, IP address, or domain is sending emails to recipients who did not complete a formal opt-in process, or if the source is producing too many messages marked as spam or deleted immediately without being opened, the increased complaint rate can lead to blacklisting.

Anti-spam databases contain regularly updated lists of IP addresses associated with devices, open proxies, and spambots known to be sources of spam. Monitoring IP addresses for matches with these blacklists can help protect networks from bad actors and malicious activity, providing device-level granularity to email filtering security solutions.

Likewise, monitoring IP blacklists for the addresses associated with your devices can help you identify a serious problem in need of immediate attention. Blacklisted mail servers, for instance, may not be able to deliver messages at all.

DNSBL stands for Domain Name System Blacklists, which refers to the various lists website admins and their tools access to block spam. These blacklists are based on the web’s DNS structure (which translates numerical IP addresses into URL domain names that are easier to parse) and allow the authority to ban spam-generating domains as needed.

The primary function of DNS Blacklists is to block and identify malicious or potentially threatening email activity though email security and filtering tools. DNS Blacklists are composed of three main parts: a domain name, a host server, and web addresses where the lists are published.

In the years since the creation of the first DNS Blacklist, many others have been established and can be used to block unwanted email-based activity. However, because each blacklist is maintained and operated by a different entity, the criteria for what qualifies as spam may vary across lists. Some blacklists are stricter with their filters, for instance, which can potentially lead to an increased number of legitimate email messages being marked as spam. More lenient blacklists, on the other hand, can occasionally let more spam through, but will likely result in fewer legitimate messages being flagged by the security system. The scope of DNS Blacklists also varies. Some are automatically updated, some are updated by hand, some only block individual IP addresses, and some can block entire service providers.

The Spam Blacklist tool included in Engineer’s Toolset (ETS) can allow you to check whether domain names and IP addresses associated with your mail servers don’t appear in any of the connected DNS Blacklists or anti-spam databases.

Spam Blacklist helps provide visibility into the status of your IP addresses, domain names, and email accounts by monitoring DNS Blacklists and anti-spam databases. Designed to be simple and easy to use, Spam Blacklist can check the originating IP addresses associated with recent spam messages to help you determine which DNS Blacklists would provide the most ideal protection for your corporate servers. It can also reveal which blacklists (if any) are blocking IP addresses linked to mail servers you interact with. Spam Blacklist also includes reporting capabilities, making it simple to document and export the results of your spam blacklist checks.

Spam Blacklist is one of more than 60 tools included in ETS, so in addition to gaining a powerful and affordable blacklist monitoring solution, you get access to other useful network management tools in a unified dashboard.