Knowledgebase
Home » Item #940
Outgoing Mail Server Security Changes
Question
My outgoing email sent from my Cactusoft-hosted CactuShop has started having problems getting through. Has there been any changes to the server policies to cause this?
Answer
All mailservers require security measures to prevent unauthorized users from sending mail through them, otherwise spammers will find and exploit the server to send millions of spams or viruses/trojans from it. The nature of these security measures must change from time to time to counter new threats.
Recently, the server admins have found the main outgoing SMTP server getting listed on Spamcop and other DNS blocklists because spam was sent from the server. This affects all users sending mail, because many other servers will reject mail coming from a blacklisted server.
Because a username and password is required to access the server, it is suspected that machines that have been taken over by a virus/trojan and form part of a 'bot net' are using the username and password from that compromised machine to send via the main SMTP server.
Since most such mail forges the outgoing 'from' address to suggest it comes from another domain, the admins have decided that the SMTP server will only now allow mail to go out if the domain on the 'from' address resides on the network.
This means that if your store is 'xyzmystoredomain.com', your site should be set such that all outgoing mail will have 'from' addresses with this domain.
If you experience outgoing mail problems, check your email address settings in your CactuShop back end. Check also that your 'spoofcontactemail' config setting is set to 'n' (no).