Over the last 3 months the amount of email handled by our mail system has increased by 720%.

More than 98% of this mail is unsolicited commercial email (spam). This is placing added preassure on our systems and causing our spam protection systems to become less effective.

One of the major contributing factors to this problem is the use of catch-all email accounts. This is where one email address will accept mail for anything sent to that domain.

The problems that arise from this is we are increasingly unable to protect our mail systems from ‘dictionary’ attacks. This is where a mail system simply tries every possible word before the @domain.com. When a catch-all account is set-up this mail is simply accepted as legitimate. This can lead to the recipient having hundreds of thousands of emails in their inbox in the space of a few hours. It also makes it difficult for us to identify systems that are using this method of attack.

By removing the ability to have a catch-all account users will have to create either a POP3/IMAP or forwarding account for each mail alias they intend to use. As we do not charge for the use of email accounts or forwarders there will be no additional cost to you.

This then means we will be able to quickly identify and shutdown ‘dictionary’ style attacks and ensure the continued smooth running of our mail systems and better spam protection.

Users with existing catch-all email accounts must create the necessary aliases within Helm prior to the 1st June 2007.

With immediate effect users will be unable to create any new catch-all email accounts.

From 1st June 2007 all existing catch-all accounts will be reverted to standard accounts.