From: "Ned Slider" <n...@unixmail.co.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, 2010/June/30 08:37


I was a little bit surprised to see a phishing email today from nationwide.co.uk that passed SPF!

So, upon further investigation we see:

$ dig txt nationwide.co.uk

;; ANSWER SECTION:
nationwide.co.uk. 5648 IN TXT "v=spf1 mx a:mailhost.nationet.com a:mailhost2.nationet.com include:messagelabs.com ~all"

Great, at least they have an SPF record, but then messagelabs.com lets the side down:

$ dig txt messagelabs.com

;; ANSWER SECTION:
messagelabs.com.        84771   IN      TXT     "v=spf1 +all"


So all mail from nationwide.co.uk will pass SPF. Great. And banks wonder why they get so many phishing emails. Are they really that incompetent or do they just not care?

I really don't understand why banks don't implement DKIM and/or SPF and make it easier for us to filter phishing emails.

My solution is to just filter ALL mail from bank or bank-like domains. The vast majority are phishing anyway with only a few marketing emails (often not from a bank domain) or "your online statement is ready" notifications that I'm sure users can do without. Those that do implement DKIM/SPF etc can then be whitelisted.

Filter the banks and have that filter generate a message to the customer
that someone unverifiably claiming to be their bank is trying to send them
email. Include a brief message for them to forward to their bank. That
should get the bank's attention.

{^_^}

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