Hackers blamed for MessageLabs spam
Managed email provider MessageLabs has blamed a security breach on one of its customer's networks for a bout of spam detected from its IP address range. The incident saw the vendor - which incidentally is paid to protect customers from inbound spam - included in block lists by other anti-spam services.
As detailed exclusively in iTnews, MessageLabs customers found that some of their outbound mail bounced last week after the service providers' IP address was included in the SORBS antispam block list. MessageLabs has since investigated the incident and concluded that its addresses were blocked due to a security incident affecting one of its customers.
"From time to time," said MessageLabs engineer Paul Woods, one of the company's 30,000 clients "will send mail that it is considered to be spam by us or one of the block list providers. "In the instance it appears that a customer's webmail service had been compromised by a spammer and used to send spam emails," he said.