5th & 11th May relates solely to the risks of you having been hit by the trojan which is a much, much smaller group of users than those whose emails have been harvested.

I have a request to make for some advice from those that know the PN system and use it.

Can you please provide a step-by-step guide on how to use the aliases, catch-all and blackhole features please? Is it possible to describe how to setup filters and the inclusion of the links too?

I think PN needed to do this a few days ago and the answers are spread over 3-4 forums and very hard to collate. I would do it but I don't have access to the portal, nor a true understanding of the PN email settings as I never used them when I was a customer. I would really appreciate the input from people.

I have only found reference to these:
http://www.plus.net/support/email/mailboxes/mailboxes.shtml?supportb=email_t5mailboxes
http://www.plus.net/support/security/spam/spam_protection_guide.shtml?supportb=email_t5spamprotection

Edited by rsharma (Wed 16-May-07 15:13:56)

nothing new there then. plusnet have had security problems that have plagued them in the past - you would have think they would have learned by now.

I remember a very discussion in this (and metronet) forums about webserver security. this could *easily* have been prevented.

I'm not certain if I can give you a "good" reply, but rather an understanding of what I have done!

As you are aware, with PN, you have a default mailbox (to which EVERYTHING goes to, UNLESS you have instructed otherwise)!

You can then set up additional mailboxes (via the portal) of the form [email protected]. These would be used by additional users, each using (if necessary) their own Email Clients.

You can also set up re-directs (but NOT from the additional mailboxes) of other email addresses (again of the form [email protected]) - this can also be done for "default" names such as [email protected].

Providing every email address that you use (or orhers use) is covered by the additional mailboxes or by re-directs, then the original default mailbox becomes redundant.

Once you have established that your default mailbox is NOT/NEVER used (it is always worth checking & double-checking first), then you can request PN to "blackhole" (basically auto-delete) anything that goes into this mailbox (NB none of these are recoverable). It is this action that reduces the risk of receiving "bounces" from non-deliverable spam messages where the spammer has used your domain.

With respect to aliases, I'm assuming this is where you have your own domain registered & are using the PN mail-servers. These are handled in the same way as the normal PN accounts. In other words, fred @mydomain.co.uk is handled the SAME way as [email protected].

Apologies if my explanation is not particularly clear, but I hope it helps!!

im not even sure if its such a good idea right now - i suspect webmail is still in an unknown state - change your password now you run the risk of it being grabbed.

the whole platform should be rebuilt from scratch.

Edited by deleted (Wed 16-May-07 15:55:02)

A sticky may even be a good idea for a FAQ on the forum

Thanks for taking the time to write it out. Seems like some very complex options there but hopefully that explains it all.

Shouldn't be a problem - webmail has been taken off-line.

"This implies that PN doesn't really have a clue"

Like that as a sentence better with this fiasco.

Betcha there is no blanket email to people who have not had an increase in spam.