The war against spam* continues, with an international campaign led by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that urges organisations to Close Open Relays and Proxies to prevent them from unwittingly sending spam.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and 36 additional agencies in 26 countries today announced Operation Secure Your Server, an international effort to reduce the flow of unsolicited commercial e-mail by urging organisations to close "open relays" and "open proxies". As part of the initiative, the participating agencies have identified tens of thousands of owners or operators of potentially open relay or open proxy servers around the world and are sending letters urging them to protect themselves from becoming unwitting sources of spam.
The Australian Communications Authority (ACA), the government body charged with implementing Australia’s anti-spam legislation, to come into force 11 April 2004, is also taking part in the project. The Spam Act 2003 prohibits sending, or causing to be sent, unsolicited commercial electronic messages that have an Australian link and provides for fines against companies of A$110,000 and court imposed penalties of up to A$1.1 million per day.
Open relays and open proxies are servers that allow any computer in the world to "bounce" or route e-mail through servers of other organisations, thereby disguising the real origin of the e-mail. Spammers often abuse these servers to flood the Internet with unwanted e-mail. Their abuses not only overload servers, but also could damage an unwitting business' reputation if it appears that the business sent the spam.
Operation Secure Your Server provides businesses with simple, inexpensive ways to protect their computer systems from misuse. The ACCC suggests that businesses consider these questions to determine whether their proxy servers are vulnerable:
Does your proxy allow connections from untrusted networks such as the Internet?
Are you using the most current version of your proxy software and hardware?
Have you applied the latest patches or upgrades available?
Are you using proper access controls for your server?
Is someone regularly checking for unauthorized uses of your proxy server?
Do you have and monitor an "abuse@<yourdomain>" e-mail account where people can report abuses of your proxy server?
"International cooperation is going to play an important role in combating spam, as this project clearly demonstrates", ACCC chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said. "Moreover, government cannot solve the spam problem on its own; everyone with an Internet connection must do their part to make sure that they are part of the solution and not part of the problem".
A web page that contains information for businesses on how to protect themselves from becoming unwitting distributors of spam is available, www.ftc.gov/secureyourserver. In addition to the agencies' letter, which is available in 21 languages, the site contains a map of world regions affected by open relay and/or proxy issues, business education, and links to other resources.
The FTC led initiative involves agencies from Albania, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Hungary, Jamaica, Japan, Lithuania, Norway, Panama, Peru, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. International cooperation, through the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN) or other appropriate mechanisms such as this project are essential to combat spam.
*Spam is unsolicited commercial electronic messages, "junk" e-mail sent to large numbers of people to promote products or services.
