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3 Ways to Prevent Email Abuse

Over 100 billion emails get sent per day. Everything from out-of-office alerts to billing summaries gets transferred across the web, from server to server. While we expect the things we send and deliver to remain secure, we know it isn’t always the case. There are various ways mail servers can be compromised, however, there are also a number of things that you can do, as a hosting provider, to prevent email abuse on your cPanel & WHM server. Here are a few of our easy-to-administer tips.

Require a Minimum Password Strength

We all know….well, we all should know the difference between a secure password and an insecure one:

Less secure: amy1234

More secure: ~4my0n3tw0thr334

With that in mind, ensuring your mail account holders are using secure passwords is one of the simplest ways to protect their information. While capitalization, symbol usage, and spelling all factor into password security, as a hosting provider, you can set a character minimum to ensure that all of your users have a base level of protection.

Learn more about Password Strength Configurations>>

Enable cPHulk

Familiar with the 2012 Marvel film The Avengers? In the final battle sequence, a seemingly unstoppable (keyword) alien army attempts to take down NYC — that is of course until the neurotically lovable Bruce Banner turns into his not-so-jolly green alter ego.

cPanel & WHM includes its own secret weapon that was developed to defend against the onslaught of brute force attacks. By enabling cPHulk, you can drastically prevent brute force attacks from affecting your users, your accounts, or your machine. Simply toggle the feature on from your Security Center and prevent malicious software from trying to muscle through your password security.

Find out the full power of cPHulk by reading our Documentation Site>>

Enable SMTP Restrictions

All online activity happens through a series of rules called protocols. For mail, SMTP, or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, is the method used to submit messages to mail servers for delivery to the recipient.

With SMTP Restrictions, a feature you can enable straight from WHM, you can prevent spammers from directly interacting with your remote mail servers or even working around your mail security settings.

Curious about SMTP Restrictions? Find out more here in our Documentation>>
There are, of course, many more ways you can up the security on your mail server and protect your customers. If you found this article helpful, be sure to share it with others. If you have a few tips for mail security worth mentioning, let us know by leaving a comment below.

Our Top 5 Tips to Reduce Spam or Junk Email in Your Inbox

While it’s not possible to completely eliminate spam messages, these 5 tips will reduce the number of junk emails in your inbox.

1) Use a spam filter.
It sounds obvious, but it is surprising how many people do not use spam filters to protect their inbox from spam and phishing emails.

2) Keep your email address private.
Don’t publish your email address anywhere on the web. If your email address is posted on a public guestbook, blog, or forum your inbox could very soon be cluttered with junk email. Automated bots crawl the web collecting these addresses 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

3) Create a spare email address.
Treat your spare email address as your public one. Use it online in forums, chat rooms, and when subscribing to mailing lists and promotions. Remember your spare email address is a temporary one. Don’t be afraid to change it often.

4) Handle with care.
You should never respond to any email address that you believe to be spam. This just tells the spammers that their email addresses are reaching your inbox! You should also consider turning read receipts off. These are often used to determine whether the emails are reaching a live inbox. Finally, never use the unsubscribe link unless you actually remember signing up to receive mail from the sender originally. Again, this is just another way for spammers to determine which emails are reaching an actual person.

5) Use disposable mail.
If you are forced to enter an email address somewhere on the web where the authenticity of the website is questionable, use a temporary email address! A service like 10minutemail.com will give you access to a working email address so that you do not have to risk using your personal address on a website you do not trust. Once you have finished, simply exit the website and you can leave knowing you will never receive any unwanted mail as a result of it.

The fight against spam has been ongoing since the first recorded incident in 1978 which affected 393 individuals. More than 30 years later, spam is reaches billions of internet users worldwide. It may not be possible to completely eliminate spam, but we can all do our bit to reduce the impact it has on our inbox.

Just be vigilant online and treat your email address like your house number and zip code; you wouldn’t post that everywhere would you?

Why You Need a Spam Blocker Like Akismet

Spam is the bane of every website. Spam comments that show up with generic praises for the quality of your posts along with questionable backlinks can slow your site down and interfere with legitimate comments from real readers. A number of WordPress plugins are made to handle spam comments, but the Akismet plugin tops the list. It is one of only two plugins built into your self-hosted WordPress installation, and it’s designed with one goal in mind: to stop spam from clogging up the comment function on your WordPress site.

Why You Need a Spam Blocker Like Akismet

Spam takes many forms, but all kinds of spam share a few common features. Spam is the nickname for Unsolicited Commercial Email, which is sent in vast amounts from questionable sites looking for backlinks, trying to get search engine recognition or “phishing” for users’ personal information.

Spam emails show up in the comments section of many WordPress sites, especially new ones. These emails often have a message proclaiming how interesting the site is, with no actual reference to the content. Typically, they’re promoting some type of product or service, and they usually include a link to another site. Left untended, spam can accumulate at the rate of hundreds per day. This can slow your site’s performance and even raise red flags with hosts and search engines. And the attention spent identifying and deleting these comments takes valuable time away from other tasks.

Spam-blocking plugins identify these kinds of email comments and filter them out, leaving only legitimate comments for site runners to moderate. Not all websites need spam blockers, though. Some sites opt to eliminate comments entirely with plugins, like the free “Disable Comments” plugin from the WordPress Plugin Directory. If comments are disabled, spam comments won’t appear; but enabling comments allows website owners to engage with visitors, build a community and promote brands, so responding to legitimate comments can be a valuable tool. Akismet WordPress plugin filters comment automatically, leaving (in most cases) only real comments from site visitors in your site’s comment section. Winning the war against spam is made possible when using a plugin like Akkismet.

Akismet Blocks Spam Automatically

Akismet was developed by Automattic, the development team behind WordPress itself. That explains the “A” in its name. It appears by default in the Plugins list of every new WordPress installation, but it requires a few additional steps for activation. Akismet operates from algorithms that define spam emails based on identified spam from multiple sites. This algorithm can “learn” new spam addresses as it operates so that it can filter with more accuracy. Once identified, these spam comments are diverted to a spam file where they can be deleted. Only legitimate comments should make it past the filter for moderation and responses. If you are trying to reduce spam or junk email on your site, downloading Akismet is an easy way to do it.

Once Akismet is activated, it runs in the background, blocking spam as it appears, but users can set specific parameters in the filter, such as keywords, links or addresses, too. Because Akismet is algorithm based, it can make mistakes. Some real comments can be blocked, and in some cases, a few spam emails can make it through. It’s wise to periodically check the spam file to see if a non-spam comment was missed. Likewise, users can manually mark comments as spam, and Akismet then adds that information to its algorithm for future filtering.

Setting up Akismet

Installing WordPress plugins is fairly easy. Although Akismet appears by default in your Plugin list, it requires an API key for activation. This can take a few extra steps on external sites. To get started, select “Activate.” The Akismet configuration screen appears, along with a prompt to enter your Akismet API key.

To get the API key, you’ll be taken to the Akismet website. Click on the button for “Get a WordPress key.” This opens a screen with Akismet plans and pricing. Akismet’s pro plan for a single business website costs around $5 per month, and an enterprise plan for unlimited websites is available for $50 per month. But if you’re activating Akismet on a single personal site, Akismet invites you to name your price – which could be free. Select the plan you want and click “Sign Up.”

Somewhat confusingly, this step takes you to additional signup with WordPress.com, the hosted version of WordPress that’s home to many smaller sites and blogs. You don’t need to create a site with WordPress.com, though. You simply need to create a WordPress.com account in order to get access to the Akismet API key.

After creating a new WordPress.com account, you’ll return to Akismet to finish signing up. Once you’ve selected your plan and payment option, you’ll be prompted to get the Akismet key. Your key is stored in your Akismet account and can be recovered at any time. Copy the Akismet key and return to your WordPress site’s plugin list. Paste the API key into the Akismet configuration screen and Akismet is immediately activated.

Spam Detection with Akismet

Along with blocking spam comments, Akismet tracks statistics on your WordPress dashboard. These stats can show how many spam comments were caught by Akismet and how many are held in the spam folder. Akismet stats can also be displayed to site visitors on pages and posts with the Akismet widget, which can be placed in any widget area allowed by your site’s theme.

Managing Akismet on Your Site

Akismet spam protection also integrates with some of the best WordPress plugins as well. It’s regularly updated by the Automattic team, so it’s important to install updates as they appear. As a site grows, users can switch Akismet plans at any time to get the features they need. Akismet can be deactivated if it’s no longer needed and reactivated at a later time. Akismet spam protection is an effective tool, but it may not be the only comment management plugin your site needs as it evolves. Other plugins can be installed alongside Akismet to perform different tasks related to moderating and managing comments.

On popular websites, the rate of spam can be as high as 85 percent, and smaller sites can see hundreds to thousands of spam comments every day. Accumulated spam can compromise both your WordPress site’s functioning and its authority, but Akismet’s constantly evolving algorithms can block most spam automatically, so you can connect with your site’s legitimate visitors.