How a virus blackened my reputation

We all like to think of ourselves as popular, so it comes of something of a shock to find yourself on a blacklist. But that’s exactly what happened to me last week or, rather, to my public IP address which, if you rely on email, is an equally damaging slight. Moreover, it’s an illustration of the fact that no matter how well protected you think you are, network security is easily breached.

It all started when my outgoing emails started to bounce back. Not all of them, just a few (including those to IT Week), leading me to think that it was a problem with the receiving servers. But then a pattern emerged. The bounce-backs were all from servers using MessageLabs filters, telling me in no uncertain terms that I was a suspected spammer and needed to do something about it.