SURBL

SURBL (previously stood for Spam(cop) URI RBL) is a well known reputation provider. See also www.surbl.org. The reputation provided isnt limited to domains but it also extends to phone numbers, email addresses, bitcoin hashes, and abused full path uri's.

Lists

SURBL provides lists of different types:

• ABUSE - spam and abuse sites
• PH - phishing sites
• MW - malware sites
• CR - cracked sites

All lists are gathered into multi.surbl.org.

There are public and private datasets from the SURBL project. There are various datasets that can be used in other ways. One of the private datasets outlines the age of a domain. That collection of data is called FRESH.

Usage

A DNS query of a domain or IP address taken from a URI can be sent in the form of spamdomain.example.multi.surbl.org or 4.3.2.1.multi.surbl.org. The multi DNS zone return records contain codes that indicate which list contains the queried for domain or IP address. Many spam filters support use of SURBL reputationdata. Small sites can use SURBL through public DNS queries, and an rsync data feed is available to professional users. SURBL data are also available in Response Policy Zone and CSV formats.

History

The SURBL project was started in 2004 by Jeff Chan to replace formatted text-based lists such as sa-blacklist (created by Bill Stearns) that were previously used in SpamAssassin and distributed through web sites. The announcement of SURBL as a URI DNSBL was made April 8, 2004 to the SpamAssassin user community. SURBL is the first major list of the URI DNSBL type, later followed by uribl.com, IvmURI and Spamhaus DBL.

Jeff Chan left the SURBL project in 2019. And the SURBL project has since run by Raymond Dijkxhoorn, Joe Wein and Tom Shaw (who passed away in 2018) who were all involved from the start of the project.

See also

• DNSBL, a spam prevention method in which e-mail messages are accepted or rejected depending on the IP address of the mail server from which the message is received.

External links

• Official website