How does v3 handle SPAM?

[Francisco]

I was wondering if there were any advances in this field

Can't wait to try it out

On currently, the suggestions that have been made to prevent SPAM that results in tickets being created are:

*email queues to require user registration, emails from none registered addresses are disgarded.

*You can install this SMTP on server that can block some e-mails but not all, http://assp.sourceforge.net/

*Kayako recommends using blacklists and SPAM ASSASIN

v3.1 will have an "intelligent filtering" for e-mails parsed before they get converted into tickets please read the 2nd page for more information regarding this.

If you have anything to add, just post here what you use and I will list it as an option

[Francisco]

bump ... 10 chars message limit

[Neil-UKWSD]

Hi,

The only change between v2 and v3 that will help with spam is the user registration system.

You can set the email queues to require user registration, emails from none registered addresses are disgarded.

For SPAM prevention outside user registration you would need to install something like SPAM Assassin and poll the emails using POP£ or IMAP after having them scanned by SPAM Assassin.

[Francisco]

Originally Posted by Neil Wood

Hi,

The only change between v2 and v3 that will help with spam is the user registration system.

You can set the email queues to require user registration, emails from none registered addresses are disgarded.

For SPAM prevention outside user registration you would need to install something like SPAM Assassin and poll the emails using POP£ or IMAP after having them scanned by SPAM Assassin.

Oh, so it's not possible to have a Built in spam detector, like Cerberus Web has when the e-mail pipping script is executed it will disregard or not send any warnings to the operators or reply to the e-mail address the spammer used.

I think you could use some of those spam listing networks for the script to be polled each 12 hours to grab a list of IP addresses :-/

[Francisco]

Hello,

I just wanted to open a discussion regarding the methods that you use to avoid spam tickets being created on your support desk. This is to avoid the staff being called everytime a spam ticket goes to the helpdesk, and have to mass deleted those spam tickets where you might delete LEGIT tickets.

I think we should make this a Stinky once we have some inputs from people.

So, what are your methods, or what did you do to stop a large percent of spam tickets?

[Olate]

Personally, I think the best method is to primarily rely upon spam protection tools on your own server. These are going to be dedicated to doing that job and so will be most effective. But I think it would be worth adding in a tool to check blacklists within eSupport mail parser and mark spam tickets with a special status so they don't notify staff, but are still added (for manual deletion) in case they are legitimate. At the very least, a ban list so you can mark tickets as spam and in future, tickets from those addresses will be discarded.

[fac3less]

I think the best thing would be a button within Kayako that you can check and that same message will not notify via e-mail, sms, etc. from that point on.

I don't mind deleting spam via ticket system - but when I'm out eating and receive a notification via blackberry/phone (concerning emergency, etc.) it is beyond annoying when it turns out to be spam.

We've parsed it as much as possible and it's beginning to annoy me.. :P

[fac3less]

Another note: You know how under the e-mail parser in kayako it only allows you to select one of the options:

Close Ticket
Place Ticket On Hold
Add Note
Note:
Flag Ticket
User:
Note:
Don't send autoresponder message
Delete Ticket
Dont send Email Forward to Staff Members

Instead of making those radio buttons - how about CHECKBOXES!
Beyond annoying to have to make multiples ..

//not really a v3 issue, only v2 hopefully fixed in v3 though.

[Francisco]

Yes, good idea about the check boxes.

I have an idea though, since v3 is modular and stuff, why don't we make a collaborational network that also uses RBLs to check for Spam.

That when a new ticket is parsed, it will sent a heart beat (containing useful header information and possibly contents *if that can't be built in like Cerberus HelpDesk has* ) sent to the spam checker to define if the message is a spam, if it is they will go on a "Possible Spam" or "Spam" folder on Kayako, and won't notify the ops of the helpdesk.

What do you guys think about it, also what methods do you use on your servers (let's say RBLs on Exim, SpamAssasin, etc).

[Francisco]

Submitted a feature request for this

http://bugs.kayako.net/index.php?do=details&id=147

[jamessykes]

Having spam scanning with a ticket system is just added bloat that is not needed, you should be scanning your email with something like spamassasin before it even gets to the ticket system.

[TonyBaird]

What I think it should have by default is atleast some sort of thing so it doesn't keep trying to send out emails to addresses that don't exist or sending them to mail daemons. By default v2 does not have this and you need to set the rules yourself which is slightly annoying.

[Francisco]

Originally Posted by TonyBaird

What I think it should have by default is atleast some sort of thing so it doesn't keep trying to send out emails to addresses that don't exist or sending them to mail daemons. By default v2 does not have this and you need to set the rules yourself which is slightly annoying.

Yes, Cerberus Helpdesk (the competition) has this implemented, we're falling behind an Important feature!

Support my Feature request by posting here http://bugs.kayako.net/index.php?do=details&id=147

[tickedon]

One of the reasons we're sticking with Cerberus (even though v3 looks very nice) is the fact it has built in spam detection.

We've setup our Cerberus installation to suppress spam, and not once has it had a false positive or missed an email after we got everything setup. It works well, and it doesn't require anything configured on the server to work.

[Francisco]

Originally Posted by tickedon

One of the reasons we're sticking with Cerberus (even though v3 looks very nice) is the fact it has built in spam detection.

We've setup our Cerberus installation to suppress spam, and not once has it had a false positive or missed an email after we got everything setup. It works well, and it doesn't require anything configured on the server to work.

That's a feature WE NEED