Spam to BIS account (tmo.blackberry.net)

**melissaox** · #31 11-19-2006 -

You should be able to see which account the email came into up at the top of the email.

Zobes · #32 11-19-2006 -

I logged onto this Cingular/Blackberry site:
bis.na.blackberry.com

I never used this website to configure my blackberry account after the first time, but I found you can configure a filter to reject all emails not sent to your chosen email address.

So far this has worked for me. Hope it helps.

Treo700 · #33 11-19-2006 -

While all are vaild possibilities can RIM's infrastucture really be cracked? Being their built on security and all?

**melissaox** · #34 11-19-2006 -

That is what a commenter suggested on my post on BBHub.... set up a filter to only send emails that are addressed to the correct account.

Scott_NYC · #35 11-21-2006 -

OK, let's look at some of the commonalities here:

- Here and on other forums (all I had to do was google "spam to blackberry.net" and I got a choice of destinations) a number of people started getting spam all on the weekend of the 11th.
- Most of these users claimed their blackberry.net address was known by either no-one or a list of people they could count on one hand.
- It seems to revolve around PharmaSpam and stock picks
- Usually the 'to' address is different from your own address, but alphabetically near.
- Carriers differ, but the emails all bubble up to blackberry.net.

I'm not sure how much further I need to go here, but if you've never read a Sherlock Holmes mystery I'll float a theory that RIM (or whomever they farm out the blackberry.net mail servers to) either had a breach or an employee who sold the address list to a spammer (I don't think this is an address guessing scam for various reasons I won't bore you with here). I've seen no announcement of this incident from them.

So the question is, what now? If you can change your blackberry.net address without too much hardship, I'm guessing your spam problem will go away (unless it was an external breach and a back door was left behind). If not, the suggestion of making sure the 'to' address matches your address should get rid of most of this spam until the spammers get smarter and clean up their list so they sync up their address database lines.

The interesting question is what is RIM going to do about this? I work as an information security consultant and if they were my client I'd probably tell them to keep mum unless compelled to speak up. Media pressure might do it. I can't see any legal routes to force them to fess up at this point as even CA SB 1386 has never been tested against JUST email address leakage and, while this is annoying, it doesn't exactly put us in harms way for identity theft. If anyone from RIM monitors these forums, I encourage you to, at the very least, do the right thing by investigating this breach (whether it's internal or external) and trying to prevent it happening again. I'm curious if someone less forgiving than me (or doesn't understand just how hard it is to maintain a 'secure' environment) will pursue this matter with more vigour.

I suppose one positive thing to come out of this is that it serves us all with a reminder that email is NOT a secure means of communication. In retrospect I can get lazy with sending information over the BB that should be a phone call. This reminds me that I can't know who's watching and will cause a refresher of that lesson to be conducted in my sphere of influence in my organization. If you're reading this, I recommend you do the same.

My 2 cents,

Scott

**Rcbjr** · #36 11-21-2006 -

Scott_NYC, Welcome to PinStack.

Excellent Post, thanks for posting your point of view. I think you are pretty much on point with everything you said.

Let us know if there is anything we can do to help with your BB, but I doubt if you need anything.

Rcbjr

kmcgowan1 · #37 11-21-2006 -

I now get about 5 a day or more on tmo bis I tried filter out mortgage and a few diff spellings but still get spam from others or diff email combos on the subject I am about to drop service and go with windows based poll service its worth the wait with out spam

Zobes · #38 11-27-2006 -

I have been spam-free for a week now. Setting up the filter as described in my post above has worked flawlessly.

I hope it has helped others.

alejune84 · #39 11-28-2006 -

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zobes

I logged onto this Cingular/Blackberry site:
bis.na.blackberry.com

I never used this website to configure my blackberry account after the first time, but I found you can configure a filter to reject all emails not sent to your chosen email address.

So far this has worked for me. Hope it helps.

Im new and just wondering how exactly i would do this. We use blacberry exchange server.

**Rcbjr** · #40 11-28-2006 -

alejune84, Welcome to PinStack.

I'm not the expert on BES so can only report what I have read on PinStack. I don't think you can set up filters for the BES, but I'm not sure. You should be able to add SPAM Filtering to your Exchange Server though. Is the SPAM going directly to the BB Address, or to the Company Exchange Address.

Let us know if there is anything else we can do to help with your BB.

Rcbjr

dtx · #41 11-28-2006 -

~via BB (wap.pinstack.com)~
I know RIM is updating their BIS software to filter spam automatically for Rogers up here in Canada, I'm assuming tmo and the others will get this update as well. Its rolling out Dec 2nd for Rogers.

alejune84 · #42 11-30-2006 -

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rcbjr

alejune84, Welcome to PinStack.

I'm not the expert on BES so can only report what I have read on PinStack. I don't think you can set up filters for the BES, but I'm not sure. You should be able to add SPAM Filtering to your Exchange Server though. Is the SPAM going directly to the BB Address, or to the Company Exchange Address.

Let us know if there is anything else we can do to help with your BB.

Rcbjr

Well I see a place where it allows you to set up filters on BES, but i have a couple of problems. First, i dont know if i should set the filters up through BES or BIS. Second, i dont know what kind of filter to set up. I was thinking since neither one of the employees that use the BB know their direct BB address that i would block anything sent directly to the device. I have set one up through BIS and i will see how it works. Thanks.

**Rcbjr** · #43 11-30-2006 -

Most of the SPAM reported recently is going directly to the Blackberry account so setting up the filter in the BIS account should catch those if they filter works. If it is coming in though the BES account, then you would have to rely on the Exchange SPAM Filters, I think. I don't think the users can create filters for BES.

Rcbjr.