Verizon cracks down on spam

Submitted by acohill on Wed, 02/18/2009 - 10:16

Verizon gets a pat on the back for cracking down on spam. The company has announced that it will finally close Port 25 on its mail servers. Port 25 allows email be sent without any authentication, making it easy for spammers to use "zombie" PCs infected with spambot software to send spam email. The change will make it more difficult to send spam from infected PCs and will also make it easier to identify infected machines, since the infected machines will have to now provide authentication before sending the spam. Judging from the comments in the this article, anyone who provides PC support for a fee will see a surge in business helping some home users make the change. A single setting buried in each user's email client on their PC has to be changed; it only takes a minute if you know where it is, but if you don't, it can be frustrating (you won't be able to send mail until it is changed). Verizon will likely provide detailed instructions for a variety of email software.