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Exchange 2003 natively supports third-party DNS blacklists. However, not all blacklists are created equal. Some of them are constructed for very specific purposes, and if used incorrectly, they can create more problems than they solve.
One potentially interesting new variety of blacklist is a geographic blacklist. (Blackholes.us is one common provider of geographic blacklists.) Geographic blacklists are designed to block everything from a specific country, Internet provider, or top-level domain.
In this case, "geography" doesn't just mean physical geography, but also the geography (maybe "topology" would be a better word) of the Internet itself.
Such blacklists are powerful tools against sudden spam floods. For instance, if a cadre of zombie PCs suddenly begins blasting your organization from Malaysia, you can temporarily blacklist all of Malaysia to free up the bandwidth needed to fight the problem a little more elegantly.
Geographic blacklists have one major drawback: they are indiscriminate. Everything that comes from a particular ISP, country or domain will be blocked, including any potentially legitimate mail.
This hasn't stopped some administrators from using them to create all-encompassing blacklists, though. One common rationale for blacklisting an entire geographic region -- China, for instance -- is that a large percentage of zombie spam is sent from there, and some administrators see little reason why a legitimate e-mail would come from there at all.
This is not a terribly sound policy, since permanently disabling an entire populace from reaching you by e-mail defeats the purpose of e-mail in the first place. As an emergency measure, that may be sound, but as an ongoing policy for how to handle e-mail, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
About the author: Serdar Yegulalp is editor of the Windows 2000 Power Users Newsletter and a regular contributor to SearchExchange.com.
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Unlike the author, I think that this approach makes total sense. My company only does business with companies in the U.S. -- ANY e-mail from China, Russia, etc., will certainly not have any business purpose.
—Kevin F.
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More information from SearchExchange.com:
Quiz: In the spammer's lair
Chapter Download: Blocking spammers with DNS blacklists
Learning Guide: Spam, spyware and viruses
Topics Library: Spam prevention and management
