Forms to Stop Spam and Viruses
- stop spam and viruses by using web forms
Having your email address on a web page or in web page coding is becoming increasingly hazardous.
Email Harvesters
Spam mailing lists are now using automated email harvesters to collect email addresses for their lists. These harvesters trawl web pages for anything that looks like an email address and then simply add you to their lists.
Email Viruses and Worms
A related and more serious problem is email viruses and worms. The new generation of email viruses are designed to maximize their distribution. They do this by searching the host computer for email addresses both in email address books and local files. They then send themselves to these addresses and often appear to come from one of them. So if you have a web page containing your email address sitting on somebody's computer (which happens as soon as they view your page) it can be found by viruses. This will result in not only you receiving a contaminated email but other email addresses found on the computer may also be sent an infected email appearing to come from you. This type of virus can make you appear to be the source of virus infected emails by faking the email from address.
Protecting your Email Address
To address this problem it is worth considering removing harvester and virus readable email addresses from web sites.
Two basic steps to protect your email address:
Use images to display the email addresses on web pages, not text. By simply replacing the @ sign with an image we get
somebody
ezyform.com
The email address is no longer identifiable as an email address by automated programs but remains human readable.
The second step is to only use forms that prevent the form delivery email addresses from being read by harvesters and viruses. Form1 forms incorporate the delivery email address in their server side code, not in the web page source code where it can be viewed by anybody; or anything; that reads your web page. Server side code is fully executed on the web server (the web host computer) and is not delivered to the users browser.
Unlike standard form processing scripts the delivery email address of a Form1 form is not displayed in browsers or browser source code and cannot be harvested by spam emailers or viruses. If you view the source code for most standard forms (from the web page go View, Source in Explorer or View, Page Source in Navigator) the recipient email address for the form is displayed. With Form1 forms this is not the case.
Managing Spam and Virus Generated Email
Forms also allow you to take control of the email delivered to your inbox. Using forms in conjunction with email filters to screen emails you can eliminate any email that is not submitted via your form. To do this simply set the form data to include a specific and unique text identifier. This can be included in the form as a hidden field or a preset subject. Then match your email filter to only accept emails that include this unique text identifier.
You should also set any email not sent to a valid email address on your domain to be rejected. In order to ensure that real email is not bounced and customers left wondering why you did not respond set up an auto response for the default rejected email to advise that it has not been delivered. This ensures that if a real person sent the email they will be able to contact you using your web site form.
Example Rejected Email Auto Response:
Your email has not been delivered.
Due to the escalating challenges and reliability issues facing standard email delivery please submit all communication via our online Support form at www.ezyform.com.
Our form submissions apply the Form1 processing engine to minimize spam and manage email contact. Additional detail on Form1 is available at http://www.softswot.com/Form1Info.php.
This message was generated when our server received an email claiming to be from your email address. If you did not send this email it may have been forged. The email from address is often faked by spam and virus generated email. If you do not wish to contact us no action is required.
Regards
www.ezyform.com
Anti Virus and Spam Filtering Software
Current Anti Virus and Spam Filtering software is a valuable investment. We use the Symantec Norton Anti Virus Live Update system which automatically updates our anti virus software so we are sure our virus protection is always current. If your sever does not provide spam filtering software try G-Lock SpamCombat. Spam filtering software that lets you remove spam emails from your mail server before they reach your inbox.
Additional information on virus activity is available from Symantec Security Response.
Third party software and services are the property of their respective holders and must be individually assessed.
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