Ken Simpson wrote:
Maybe I'm just an ignorant e-mail postmaster. I thought that
nearly all e-mail was (E)SMTP-based (LMTP excepted).
If it doesn't use the SMTP protocol, it's not reaching any
mailbox. HTTP is a web browser protocol. WebMail gets converted
by the web server and is subsequently routed using SMTP.
I think he's talking about blog spam, which is definitely submitted
over HTTP.
I think that the person who started this thread is
talking about spam coming from the wide variety of
old, poorly written form handler scripts and other
programs that at some point in the program talk to
the mail program on the web server and thus allow
an attacker to hijack said script for the purpose
of using that script to amplify their spam message(s).
As a web hosting provider I have had to shut down
numerous scripts on my client's websites because
of this reason.
The question that I think is being asked here is
how does one go about ensuring that email coming
from a web form is actually a valid contact email
and not a spam amplification attack. If there are
measures that can be taken, what are those measures?
Gregory Kuhn
Coast to Coast Hosting
