Noticable Spam reduction

[ray]

We have noticed that we are suddenly getting only about 25% of the spam that we were a few weeks ago. We use Spam Assasin - was there an upgrade to it or something that explains this?

[AndrewT]

What server are you on?

[ray]

14

[AndrewT]

Nothing has been changed on that server.

[Ben]

I have the opposite problem, spam has increased significantly over the last few days. Interestingly I notice that in emails received before the increase Spam Assasin was using the following tests -
tests=AWL,BAYES_00, HTML_IMAGE_ONLY_24,HTML_MESSAGE,MIME_HTML_ONLY,NOR MAL_HTTP_TO_IP, RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET autolearn=no version=3.1.0

but now it's only using
tests=BAYES_50,FUZZY_ROLEX, UNPARSEABLE_RELAY autolearn=no version=3.1.0

How come it's changed? I'm on CPanel15.

Ben

[AndrewT]

Make sure that you actually have SpamAssassin setup to rewrite the e-mail subjects and that you filter those subjects out of your e-mail. Otherwise SpamAssassin will essentially do nothing but add headers to your e-mails.

[Ben]

Make sure that you actually have SpamAssassin setup to rewrite the e-mail subjects and that you filter those subjects out of your e-mail. Otherwise SpamAssassin will essentially do nothing but add headers to your e-mails.

Yes, e-mail subjects are being rewritten and are being filtered out. I haven't changed anything in my setup for months. SpamAssassin is still working, it's just the tests that have changed and is therefore letting more spam through. I can't even see anywhere to configure which tests it applies. Why would the tests have changed? Has there been an update to CPanel that would have changed them?

[AndrewT]

cPanel/WHM are upgraded regularly, so it is possible that one of those upgrades have changed the tests that are used. Probably for good reason.

[pravin]

huge increase in spam

most of our employees use their accounts for work only, because of the nature of our business. From some polling, we were used to getting 1 to 5 spam emails a month per account. In the past week it has increased dramatically to where everyone is getting spam every day and some users are getting 15 spam emails a day (when they used to get one a week).

we are on cpanel30.gzo.com

[AndrewT]

SpamAssassin is far from perfect and the tests have changed as has been noted above. I would look into client side filtering solutions if it is a big problem. You could also try adjusting your SpamAssassin threshold a bit lower.

[ChrisTech]

most of our employees use their accounts for work only, because of the nature of our business. From some polling, we were used to getting 1 to 5 spam emails a month per account. In the past week it has increased dramatically to where everyone is getting spam every day and some users are getting 15 spam emails a day (when they used to get one a week).

we are on cpanel30.gzo.com

Spam seems to vary per week for me across my different domains. Two weeks ago on cp08 I was getting approx 50 odd emails a day, then this past week, they've dropped off, to around 10-15 a day.

I use client side filtering (www.spampal.com) and just filter it all.

[jlarson]

cPanel/WHM are upgraded regularly, so it is possible that one of those upgrades have changed the tests that are used. Probably for good reason.

Perhaps good reason, but it is strange how these changes occur. In my experience Spamassassin on cpanel05 either lets pretty much everything through or it does a pretty decent job of filtering. For the last year or so it's mostly let everything through, although for several weeks just recently it did what it's supposed to, then a few days ago went back to letting everything through. When it works it's great. I just live with it.