If you’ve been added to the Barracuda blocklist, there’s a good chance that spam is coming out on your end – whether through your account or the server you’re using.
The Barracuda Reputation Block List, simply known as BRBL, is a system that spots users and email servers that are associated with open email relays or spambots. When you are included in the BRBL, this often means that you or your server has been sending out a significant amount of spam messages recently.
Whether intentional or not, your top priority is to get delisted from the BRBL if you want to continue operating your email marketing campaigns. IP addresses added to the Barracuda blocklist (or any blocklist in general) can severely hamper your ability to send emails.
To start, it’s important to understand what BRBL is all about and how it works.
What is the Barracuda Reputation Block List (BRBL)?
The Barracuda Reputation Block List (BRBL) is a Domain Name System-based Blackhole List (DNSBL) that lists and blocks IP addresses that have been flagged for spam. It is a tool created and maintained by Barracuda Networks, a security service provider fighting spammers.
The job of the BRBL is to identify those email senders within mail servers that have improper configurations in terms of their sending practices. It also flags those that have sent malicious code or emails to spam trap addresses.
Although listings only happen at the IP address or IP data level, being added to the blocklist handled by the Barracuda Central Reputation System can significantly impact one’s deliverability.
Reasons to Get Listed
The biggest reason anyone’s IP address would be included in the Barracuda bocklist is sending spam, which is against the CAN-SPAM Act. The BRBL has a mechanism that lists down IP addresses that use spam proxies and open relays automatically. It also identifies single IP addresses that have triggered honeypots or spam traps.
The Barracuda Reputation Block List goes through emails of each IP address to test them against their rules. Messages that are sent out receive a score according to how likely they would be flagged as spam. If an email fails the test, the sender’s IP address is immediately added to the BRBL.
Here are several more reasons that would help you identify why your IP address has been blocklisted:
- The mail server that you’re using has been compromised and someone has been sending spam messages to your contacts.
- Your fellow marketers within the same mail server have been sending out vast quantities of emails that fail to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.
- Your personal computer has been compromised by a botnet software program that has been responsible for spam.
- You’re connected to a network that is accessible by a malicious user who has been sending spam emails.
- Your mail server doesn’t follow the best email practices and is incorrectly set up.
- Using dynamic IP addresses can lead you to be added to the BRBL.
If you haven’t been sending spam yourself, it could be that one or more of the user accounts in your email server has been compromised by a hacker. It’s possible to check these compromised accounts by scanning and analysing server data.
You can easily identify email accounts that have been sending a suspicious number of emails recently. You should also check to see which user accounts in your server logs have been prompting the system for an unreasonably high number of logins. This is usually an indication that you’ve identified the source of spam in your network.
Another common reason is having contact forms that aren’t secured correctly. However, issues with these forms are easy to identify than others. Seeing a high post request rate often means that the form itself is the one sending out spam. Ensure you have the latest updates installed to stop this from happening in the future.
How to Delist from Barracuda
Barracuda Central Reputation System has a page that allows users to request to have their IP addresses removed from their blocklist. You can file a request to have your IP address taken out of their database on this page. Approval often means that they will have you delisted in less than a day.
To have your IP address removed, you need to provide the following details:
- Email address
- The IP address of your mail server
- Contact number
- Reason for removal
We can help you do this easier and quicker with our managed services tool. Just schedule a deliverability assessment call and one of our deliverability experts will guide you through the whole process and help you understand all the important details to keep in mind.
How to Avoid Being Listed in Barracuda
The best way to avoid being listed on the Barracuda blocklist is to truly understand how and why the IP address of your server was blocklisted in the first place. Doing so will help you learn from any mistakes that have been made, which will also let you make corrections to reduce the chances of being blocklisted.
Another thing that you can do is verify your list of email addresses in your contact database. It’s important to note that purchasing from email lists increases the probability of being flagged by the BRBL.
The main reasons for this are due to the contacts in these lists aren’t people who have personally subscribed to your campaign or could contain spam traps. The latter is particularly critical since triggering one of these traps can easily result in being blocklisted in the BRBL and by anti-spam entities and email service providers.
Conclusion
The Barracuda Reputation Block List is one of the most well-known blocklists today that fight against spam. Its primary means of operation is to identify potential spam coming from IP addresses and block them from sending messages that could harm others.
In case you find yourself added to such a blocklist, it’s important to note that there is a way for you to get delisted. The first step is to visit the Barracuda removal page and file your request for delisting from there. The next step is to figure out what caused your IP address from being listed and how you can avoid that in the future.
By following the tips provided in this article, you should have a better chance of being delisted and prevent it from happening again.
