Spamhaus has mostly mitigated the dDOS against the Spamhaus website and mailserver, but now the CBL is under attack. They have been working to get that under protection as well, but it’s taking some time.
Right now there are no public channels for delisting from the CBL. The Spamhaus Blog will be updated as things change, and I’ll try and keep things updated here as well.
UPDATE: Cloudflare talks about the scope of the attack
I got mail late last night from one of the Spamhaus peeps telling me that they were under a distributed Denial of Service (dDOS) attack. This is affecting email. Incoming email is delayed and they’re having difficulty sending outgoing email. This is affecting their responses to delisting queries.
They are working on mitigation and hopefully will be fully up and running soon.
Updates when I get them.
Update (8/29/2012): mail to Spamhaus should be back.
“If you do stupid things, you’re going to get blocked,” says Jigsaw CEO Jim Fowler in an interview with Ken Magill earlier this week.
Jigsaw is a company that rewards members to input their valuable business contacts. Once the addresses are input into Jigsaw, they are sold to anyone who wants them. Jigsaw gets the money, the people providing information get… something, the people who provided business cards to Jigsaw members get spammed and the people who downloaded the lists get to deal with a delivery mess. Sounds like a lose for everyone but Jigsaw.
Except that now Jigsaw is listed on the SBL for spam support services. Well, that’s going to cause some business challenges, particularly given how many companies use the SBL as part of their filtering scheme.
It’s hard to think of a situation where I would appreciate someone I gave a business card to providing my information to a site that then turns around and lets anyone download it to send email to. I know, I know, there are a million companies out there I’ve never heard of that have The Product that will Solve All my Problems. But, really, I don’t want them in my work mailbox. The address I give out on my business cards is, for, y’know, people to contact me about what I’m selling or to contact me about things they’ve already purchased from me. That address is not for people to market to. I have other addresses for vendors, and even potential vendors, to contact me.
Jigsaw clearly facilitates spam to businesses by collecting email addresses and then selling them on. This is a drain on small businesses who now have inboxes full of valuable offers to wade through. Perhaps their stint on the SBL will make them reconsider their spam support services.
HT: Al