Make sure your static IP’s don’t come with baggage!

Thinking about getting a static IP for your small business (or over-the-top home network)? Then you may first want to see if the IP’s your ISP is offering come with any baggage. I recently had the pleasure of helping one of my clients rid his shiny new IP’s of blacklists. If you are unfamiliar, a wise IT admin once said, “…blacklists make email not work”.

 

He was referring to the fact that once an IP has been tagged as a source of spam, your popularity on email server blacklists will soon follow. There are quite a few good (and not so good) websites that offer RBLs or Real Time Block Lists for exchange servers. You will usually see small and mid-size companies that have one or two exchange servers use these free lists. Bigger corporations and even ISPs use their own form of blacklisting, but trust me, they all work the same. If your IP is on a blacklist it makes it nearly impossible to send email to most domains these days. The only way to erase the damage from the previous owner is to beg for forgiveness.

 

Is my IP associated with a block list?
Here is how to check: go to this site and enter your IP address. You will be given a list of well known RBL providers and green or red light indicating your squeaky clean, or muddy past.
If all is well on this site the biggest part is over. You may still be receiving NDR’s from other domains though. You will need to deal directly with those domains to correct the problem. Usually a link to an online application for removal will be provided in the NDR. If a link is not provided you will need to contact the webmaster or IT admin on record. All domains are required to have such records, so you can check a WhoIs database.

 

Doing a little research before your purchase can save you a lot of time and headache later. If you do get blacklisted, follow the above steps to help yourself get back on track.

 

Test Your Phishing IQ

Think you’re good at filtering bad email? Are you certain you won’t be duped into giving away valuable information?
You may want to come down from your pedestal, because spammers and phishing scams are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

 

If you are unsure of what a phishing scam is, it is basically an attempt made by a scammer to exploit human curiosity/carelessness for personal gain.
Most phishing scams require some type of “bait” (i.e. email) to lure the victim to a hostile internet site, typically acting as a legitimate site. Once there, the scam will commence by asking for personal information, usually financial in nature. It is amazing how real the bait emails appear to be and how convincing the scammers are when asking for personal information. Sharpen your skills by taking the Sonicwall Phishing IQ test. This online exam has 10 real-world examples of email phishing, after the exam you will be scored and given reasons to missed questions.

 

Give it a try HERE.

 

We at ITSupportJournal scored a 9 out of 10, which in the world of scams = a ZERO!

 

 

Let us know how you did by commenting to this post.

Send to “Undisclosed Recipients” in Outlook

At some point in your life you have probably seen an email come across your inbox with “Undisclosed Recipients” in the To: field. These types of emails are primarily used by departments (i.e. HR), vendors, or individuals who need to send a common email to a set of mutually exclusive email addresses. For example, a Human Resources manager needs to send out a reminder email to a group of company employees that need to be drug tested. The manager does not want the employees to know about each other because of privacy and courtesy reasons, but the common email needs to be sent to over 100 people. Instead of sending the same email a hundred times, the manager will use “Undisclosed Recipients” to send the email once to all parties involved. When each employee receives the email, they will not be able to see what other employees the email was sent to, thereby preserving the anonymity of each recipient. This is just one example of many other useful applications sending to Undisclosed Recipients can have.

Now that you have seen an example and have pondered the benefits of the Undisclosed Recipient, it is time to show you how to use it.

How to send to Undisclosed Recipients in Outlook.

1. Start by showing the Bcc: (Blind Carbon Copy) address bar.

• In Outlook, click New Message to create a new email message.
• On the toolbar of the new email message, click Options and check Bcc

 

2.Properly address the email.

• In the To: field, you will need to enter the following:
  “Undisclosed Recipients” < you@yourdomain.com >
• We need to use the Bcc or Blind Carbon Copy to input the addresses of your recipients. This can be multiple single addresses or a distribution list.

 

3.Once your email has been composed and all the recipients’ addresses are in the Bcc field, you can send it.

 

That’s it! Now when you need to send a common email to mutually exclusive recipients just use the “Undisclosed Recipients” format to help keep everyone’s email private.