Remote Sending Spam

[wilson18]

Hi,

I have a fairly new server set up with only a handful of users on it. I have just checked our sent emails and i have seen some coming from a domain which isnt hosted with us. After checking the sent summary i can see the following:

Domain User Successful Deferrals Failures Failed and Deferred Total Messages Data Sent
-remote- 221 0 113 113 328 6.77 MB

All pail is sent through the Web Mail so it shouldnt be the case of some been sent from elseware.

Is there any way to find out how they are sending the emails and stop it?
I have used mysql -e "SELECT * FROM eximstats.sends WHERE user = '-remote-'\G" > /root/mysqlremotesends and here are just a couple entries from the file

*************************** 4199. row ***************************
mailtime: 2014-04-01 11:47:49
msgid: 1WUwEO-0005fX-6i
email: [email protected]
processed: 0
user: -remote-
size: 48053
ip: 85.158.xxx.xxx
auth: localdelivery
host: mail1.bemta4.domaintoo.com
domain:
localsender: 1
spamscore: 4.3
*************************** 4200. row ***************************
mailtime: 2014-04-01 11:54:58
msgid: 1WUwLI-0006Ek-85
email: <>
processed: 0
user: -remote-
size: 3525
ip: 87.238.xx.xx
auth: localdelivery
host: hostname.domain.de
domain:
localsender: 1
spamscore: 0
*************************** 4201. row ***************************
mailtime: 2014-04-01 11:55:53
msgid: 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y
email: bounce-zwdsprsbwsblkrrwzrdzkwmdrlwzw...domainthree.com
processed: 0
user: -remote-
size: 31849
ip: 208.123.xx.xx
auth: localdelivery
host: mail6.domaintoo.com
domain:
localsender: 1
spamscore: -4.6

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[mtindor]

Does this produce anything:

grep 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y /var/log/exim_mainlog|grep courier_login

If so, is there a local email account listed right after courier_login: that is the same in all of those messages? That would be an indicator of a breached email account being used to send spam.

Mike

 

[wilson18]

Does this produce anything:

grep 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y /var/log/exim_mainlog|grep courier_login

If so, is there a local email account listed right after courier_login: that is the same in all of those messages? That would be an indicator of a breached email account being used to send spam.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Thanks for getting back to me. I have just tried that and nothing comes back from it

Chris

 

[wilson18]

When just doing
grep 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y /var/log/exim_mainlog
I get the following

2014-04-01 11:55:53 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y H=mail6.domain.com [208.123.xx.xx]:41733 Warning: "SpamAssassin as localuser detected message as NOT spam (-4.6)"
2014-04-01 11:55:53 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y H=mail6.domaintoo.com [208.123.68.16]:41733 Warning: Message has been scanned: no virus or other harmful content was found
2014-04-01 11:55:53 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y <= bounce-zwdsprsbwsblkrrwzrdzkwmdrlwzw...sswalkmail.com H=mail6.domaintoo.com [208.123.xx.xx]:41733 P=esmtp S=31849 [email protected] T="How to Prepare Your Kids for Meaningful and Worthy Lives" for [email protected]
2014-04-01 11:55:53 cwd=/var/spool/exim 3 args: /usr/sbin/exim -Mc 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y
2014-04-01 11:55:53 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y => localuser <[email protected]> R=localuser T=local_delivery
2014-04-01 11:55:53 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y Completed

 

[mtindor]

When just doing
grep 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y /var/log/exim_mainlog
I get the following

2014-04-01 11:55:53 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y H=mail6.domain.com [208.123.xx.xx]:41733 Warning: "SpamAssassin as localuser detected message as NOT spam (-4.6)"
2014-04-01 11:55:53 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y H=mail6.domaintoo.com [208.123.68.16]:41733 Warning: Message has been scanned: no virus or other harmful content was found
2014-04-01 11:55:53 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y <= bounce-zwdsprsbwsblkrrwzrdzkwmdrlwzw...sswalkmail.com H=mail6.domaintoo.com [208.123.xx.xx]:41733 P=esmtp S=31849 [email protected] T="How to Prepare Your Kids for Meaningful and Worthy Lives" for [email protected]
2014-04-01 11:55:53 cwd=/var/spool/exim 3 args: /usr/sbin/exim -Mc 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y
2014-04-01 11:55:53 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y => localuser <[email protected]> R=localuser T=local_delivery
2014-04-01 11:55:53 1WUwM8-0006PP-5Y Completed

That [and the info from your first post] seem to indicate that those are just normal emails coming in from external mailservers to your mailsystem for your users. I dont particularly see anything wrong at this point. What is it that is making you believe that your server is sending out unwanted mails to remote mailservers?

Mike

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello

The "-remote-" user is used for incoming and outgoing mails that are not local. Effectively, it's used for when an email is sent out of the server or when an email is sent to the server and the sender or recipient are remote. Is there any other evidence that leads you to believe that this is SPAM email?

Thank you.

 

[wilson18]

Im thinking they are spam due to the domains they are coming from not actually been hosted on the server on anyones accounts and yet they are still going out.

 

[cPanelMichael]

The following document is a good place to start if you want to prevent email abuse:

cPanel - Prevent Email Abuse

You may also want to enable SpamAssassin for outgoing email to help reduce the potential of SPAM being sent from your server.

Thank you.