With the technology being advanced with each passing day making our life easier, the misuse/mishandling of it is also increasing, but login to your WiFI admin panel can save you from cyber criminals trying to enter your IP address. Everyone nowadays has access to emails and has a functioning mail ID. From school students using Instagram to a middle-aged person, everyone uses a mail ID.
What Is IP Blacklist?
When we refer to IP blacklists, it basically means that the given IP address will not be able to access a certain area. Cybersecurity companies compile databases of IP addresses that send spam. They share these databases with the email service provider to protect users from unwanted email and spam messages. When you use your blacklisted IP address for sending a mail, it will either remain unsent or land in the recipient’s spam box.
Reasons For IP Blacklist
An IP address can be blacklisted for several reasons such as
- Not maintaining the mailing list properly.
- You could have purchased a bad email list.
- Your email account got hacked by someone.
- Your email id was marked as spam by many people.
So What Can We Do To Remove It?
Most of the blacklisted IPs can be easily removed by requesting delisting and following few instructions and simple steps. If a block affects a range, the compliance department will investigate the issue and try to solve it. If it is an individual block, please contact the website that blocked your IP address directly.
Here Are Some Most Common Blacklist And How To Delist Them
Barracuda:
Look up a reputation and request delisting.
It requires your IP address, email address, phone number, and a valid reason for removal. They will investigate and will do the needful if you have given a proper and valid reason within 12 hours of submission.
Spamhaus:
Request delisting. It operates several blacklists. It’s a simple process. You just have to enter your IP address in the blacklisted removal center to find out which list you are on and follow the instructions to delist your IP address.
Spamcop:
Automatically after 24 hours of reports. This works a little differently than other servers. As long as it continues to receive spam reports from your network, it automatically will block it, and your IP address will be on the blacklist. But if there will be no reports of any new spam, it automatically will be delisted.
Invaluement:
It adds you to their blacklist if you are part of a range of IP addresses or domains they classify as spammers. It would be best if you showed you have not sent spam from your IP address or prove that you are on that blacklist because someone hacked your account.
Lashbox:
It bases its blacklist solely on whether your IP address attempted to email one of these spam trap email addresses. You get one free slip-up every 30 days, but you will have to pay for repeat offenses.
With the prevalence of spam circulating the globe in massive amounts, it is very important to administer your IP address and prevent it from ending up blacklisted. Spammers employ all kinds of techniques to send out as many spam messages as possible without revealing their identities. For them, it’s basically a number game. The more they will send, the more chances of it being opened by people, and even if only a small amount of people will click on a link or buy a product advertised in the same, they will be benefited.
If your email structure is not properly secured, then you risk being infected with the spam.
HERE ARE RECOMMENDATIONS YOU CAN CONSIDER TO PROTECT IT FROM BEING BLACKLISTED
- Use strong passwords that contain both lower and upper case letters, numerical symbols as it will be easy for the spammers to hack it if the password is simple and weak.
- Use SMTP Authentication. In MDaemon Remote Administration, go to Security| Sender Authentication| SMTP Authentication. Then check the box “Authentication is always required when mail is sent from local accounts.” Make sure “…unless the message is a local account” is unchecked.
- Do not allow relaying. Relaying occurs when mail that is neither to nor from the local account is sent through your mail server. It is common for spammers to exploit open relays; therefore, one should ensure that your server doesn’t relay mail.
- Make sure you have a valid PTR record that matches your outbound public IP to your mail server name or fully qualified domain name.
- Set up an SPF record. It is an anti-spoofing technique that determines if an incoming email from a domain was sent from a host that is authorized to send mail for that domain.
- Configure the IP shield. It is a security feature that allows you to specify IP address ranges that are allowed to send mail for a particular domain.
Carefully follow these steps and have a look at your IP address and keep it safe and away from blacklisting.
