MessageLabs Blacklists Email from UK BT Business Broadband ISP Customers − ISPreview UK News

MessageLabs Blacklists Email from UK BT Business Broadband ISP Customers

By: MarkJ - 19 August, 2010 (9:14 AM) - Score: 7128 - Fixed Line Broadband, Security

MessageLabs (Symantec Hosted Services), a well known internet security firm, has taken flak after customers of the BT Business broadband ISP service found that they were unable to send emails between Monday and Tuesday because a crucial server IP address had been blacklisted due to SPAM (junk email). A post on BT's Customer Forum by one of the operators moderators has since revealed more information.

BT Statement 1

We are aware that an organisation has chosen to ‘blacklist’ IP addresses which include those provided to BT customers, as well as those of other organisations, alleging that some of these customers’ computers are being used to create ‘spam’ email. However, most cases of blacklisting that are reported to us have turned out to be a technical issue that we can resolve.

...

With regard to blacklisting, the vast majority of BT customers are responsible and do not knowingly create spam email. It is BT's view that it is not appropriate to blacklist an entire IP range because of the misuse of a small number of computers.

Thanks

Frances

Forum Moderator

BT Statement 2

BT Business is aware that some customers have reported ‘bouncebacks’ when sending emails to people who are using Messagelabs anti-spam solutions; many thanks for letting us know about this issue on the Forum. The problem has now been fixed. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Thanks

Tracey

BT Forum Moderator

Sadly the blocking of any ISPs business email addresses, even if just for a day or two, can cause significant financial detriment to customers. It is not known how many people were affected, although some reports claim that up to 200,000 could of been hit (both BT and non-BT internet users).

However MessageLabs has denied any involvement with the blocking, although it's claimed that they make use of a separate blocklist service from UCEProtect which, acting on its own, chose to place a restriction upon the BT IP address.

For its part UCEProtect claims that, "all we want [BT to do] is block port 25 on their dynamic assigned IP's as recommended by the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group MAAWG since 2005". This is something that BT and some other UK ISPs have yet to do, although it is quite common in other countries.

Last year UCEProtect claimed that "massive" amounts of SPAM originated from BT's network, which isn't a surprise considering that they have millions of customers. It only takes a handful of customers with bad intentions to send a colossal amount of junk email.