SpamRATS

About SpamRATS!

SpamRATS first became a public RBL in 2007, and back then we just wanted to share what we were seeing and doing with the general public. Over time our data collection grid grew, along with our threat research team and data processing capabilities. SpamRATS now provides one of the most effective Internet Protocol (IP) Address based Real-Time Blackhole Lists (RBLs) for securing mail servers.

You may be here because you've received yet another spam email. Well, maybe if you blocked those really annoying trouble spots (RATS) at the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) level of your server, this wouldn't be a problem. We have several IP Reputation lists that have all the indicators of being RATS, and you can use them just like any of your favourite RBLs.

Based on our observations, the most abusive types of connections for mail servers are those that either run authentication attacks (e.g. dictionary attacks), or mass mailings. The majority of this activity comes from one of the following sources:

  • IoT Botnets, machines infected and controlled with malicious software
  • Bulletproof Hosting Provider networks
  • Compromised Servers
  • Email Marketing Companies

The use of IP Reputation is one of the most effective ways to reduce overhead, bandwidth, and of course Unwanted Bulk Email (UBE). The most common way to achieve this is to check connections against IP Address lists to block or filter them. Our data collection grid provides us with large amounts of spam information from ISPs daily, and we've compiled this data to be used in our anti-spam tools which we have made available to the public. Our RATS-Dyna, RATS-NoPtr, and RATS-Spam reputation lists are specialized for blocking spam. The RATS-Auth reputation list is specialized for protecting your email accounts from suspicious logins.

SpamRATS is dedicated to helping ensure that all mail servers can choose to only accept messages from other properly configured mail servers. We've taken the steps to maintain the integrity of our data when it comes to additions and removals of the IP addresses in our reputation lists. SpamRATS is a completely automated system available to the general public. We hope this service helps protect you against some of the most problematic types of threats draining your email systems.

Many thanks to our Sponsors, Subscription Holders, Users and Contributors.