In Brief A popular spam blocklist service that went offline earlier this month has advised users it is down permanently – but at least one potential candidate is stepping up to try to fill the threat intelligence void. Data security firm Data443, citing exclusive reporting by our Simon Sharwood, said last week it plans to begin offering free access to its own spam domain and IP blocklist service for members of the Spam and Open Relay Blocking System (SORBS) community. SORBS was, until June 5, a free DNS-based block list containing records for more than 12 million servers used for spamming, phishing and scamming.
More than 200,000 organizations made use of SORBS until security vendor Proofpoint took it offline, citing "various factors impacting the service's sustainability." Lest you think Data443 has acquired the SORBS codebase, that doesn't appear to be the case. Instead of a continuation of SORBS itself, Data443 is offering "a slight time-lagged edition of our commercial offerings" in a limited fashion "specifically on domain/IP blocklists," according to the signup page for its "SORBS onboarding" process.
Data443 founder and president Jason Remillard confirmed to The Register that the data is coming from his company's Cyren platform, which includes an email protection element alongside other threat analysis and cyber security elements. "We don't need the [SORBS] codebase to deliver results – our platform has the capabilities to produce the data," Remillard declared. "On.
