Find The Answer To If One Needs To Worry About Spam in Backup Email Server
The rationale behind opting for a backup email server is that the backup MX record receives the messages when the primary server is down and delivers them to the latter when it is up and running. Businesses can choose a free backup MX option or go for dedicated software like No IP backup MX or postfix backup MX.
Generally, SMTP servers queue undelivered messages for a few days only. On the other hand, with a backup MX server, you can store the unavailable messages for much longer. Even though it looks like an advantage of the backup server over the routine SMTP one, it could also be risky. That’s because if the SMTP server is down for long, one will have so many more undelivered emails in the backup server queue, which once sent, would bring down the reputation of the server for sending too many emails at a time, which is even considered nefarious by many receiving servers.
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Backup Mail Server And Spam
Since the backup email server does not employ the same anti-spam measures as the primary server, they become targets of malicious actors. They cannot bypass the primary server’s strict firewalls.
Another way through which spammers get inside the backup email servers is by not performing recipient validation. It accepts all messages from the backed-up domains and forwards them to the primary server. However, the primary server rejects all the invalid recipient emails, and the backup MX server bounces back the emails to the sender. This bounce back or backscatter can send spam messages to innocent users. Additionally, since the receiving server becomes unavailable, the backscatter fills up the mail queue with bounced emails, which the backup MX server cannot deliver. Hence, a backup email server with no recipient validation may get heavily attacked by spam, and keep thousands of undelivered emails in the queue.
Thus, while a backup email server may be an essential and beneficial tool that ensures business continuity in a server crisis, it can sometimes act as a springboard for malicious actors to inject spam into the information system.
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