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october 2005

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• » Your Web Site Under Attack!
• » Showcase: MaryBeth Brown Marketing

Your Web Site Under Attack!

Assimilating you into the spamming collective
A sinister legion of intruders has invaded the world wide web, turning millions of sites (like yours) into hapless spamming automatons. Sound like science fiction? Unfortunately, it's real. Probe attacks targeted a couple of DTL sites in late August forcing us to route additional power to our shields.

And here's the kicker: blasts of junk mail go out from your web site with your domain name on it!

What you need to know
Spammers hijack a vulnerable computer for mounting an email injection attack — a method of sending spam through web forms, like a contact page, using robotic software. By posting information directly to an email-sending script, they can insert their own content and spam anyone they please. Outgoing messages identify the victimized web site owner and hosting server, and the spammer is virtually untraceable.

Who is vulnerable?
Any web site with a form that sends information via email can be hacked, regardless of which programming language is used (PHP, Perl, ASP, C, ColdFusion, shell scripts, etc.). JavaScript filtering on web pages is ineffective — the attacking spambots bypass the web page and directly hit the supporting scripts.

What can happen to you
These attacks often cause the web site owner and other victims to get spammed. Error messages can be bounced into your mailbox, or the spam blasts can go out without your knowledge. That puts you and your web hosting company at risk of being blacklisted by other service providers attempting to protect their own customers. Being blocked by a large provider such as AOL or Yahoo can have disastrous affects on your business (and ours).

Shields up!
DTL immediately developed a web form protection system that detects over a dozen telltale signs of an email injection attack. If a posting is deemed to have come from a spambot, it is rejected. Rejection is good, but extermination is better.

So we integrated this new web protection into DTL's real-time, adaptive BlockSmith system. This blocks attackers at our firewall, stopping repeat hijackings by denying all access to our network. (For more details, read about BlockSmith and how it protects your email and now your web site.)

Only customers with DTL-designed sites are fully protected
The sites for all DTL web design customers were updated in early September after we became aware of this problem. No action is required on your part. Your web forms are now part of an active defense system that helps protect all our customers.

Other DTL customers take evasive action
If your web site is not designed by DTL, uses third party web applications, or is hosted elsewhere, you must ensure that your web forms are hijack-proof to avoid potential downtime. Web sites found to be abused by spambots must be taken offline to protect your email status and all other DTL customers.

The problem is easily solved with the right technology — and since technology is DTL's middle name (literally) we can help.

Showcase: MaryBeth Brown Marketing

This month, DTL shares the rich chocolaty decadence of MaryBeth Brown Marketing's new web site. MaryBeth needed a simple but elegant site for her new marketing consultancy. So with a name like Brown, our color scheme was obvious and gave us great inspiration. Plus, this low-calorie DTL design, weighing in at less than 100K of highly optimized XHTML and graphics, features heavy-duty expandability when needed. “I love it! You captured the exact essence I wanted,” says Brown, “I must call Sheila and thank her for introducing me to you.” (We do spread the goodness; Sheila earned a complimentary month of service for her recommendation.) It may be the simplest site we've created in a while, but it's pretty sweet all the same.

WHAT YOU SAID

“DTL enabled me to update my site effortlessly .... Morgan is one of those guys that won't let go until it's perfect. I've known him for over 20 years and his ability and integrity are beyond reproach.”

— Brock Meeks, MSNBC
Brock N. Meeks Photography

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Sincerely,

Morgan Davis
President, DTL Networx