MailRoute vs. Barracuda
By Security Expert Boris Lukashev and MailRoute Founder Thomas A. Johnson
Created August 8, 2013 to address Barracuda's known security hole in their appliance, which was exploited in June 2023 by hackers
Barracuda’s hosted protection and hardware are both subject to the myriad security issues that have plagued Barracuda to date (the main issue being that there is insecure, backdoor access into their hardware, and they cannot or will not remove it.)
Not only are they opting out of the Compliance/DIB market, but their hosted service by industry standards is not a complete service. It is missing major features users need (your ability to limit emails for a specific subsets of users), and it is crippled in areas like configurability, particularly at the end-user level (you can't change filter settings for different users with their service, which is critical).
1. Security. Both MailRoute and Barracuda offer TLS encryption. Barracuda does have a feature where you can force people to login to a Barracuda mailbox to view a "secure" email. We don't offer that, because, frankly, we think it's an annoying thing to make people do, and there's no actual guarantees of security. MailRoute offers DKIM signatures for outbound mail -- something they do not seem to support at all.
2. Reputation. Barracuda uses their own reputation service. We use multiple third-party reputation services, and our own as well. We do reputation checks for IP addresses, mail servers, senders, URLs, relay hosts and other aspects of the service, not just URLs in messages.
We also check the destinations that various URLs point to, and use that information to determine if a URL in a message is a dangerous one.
3. DLP. This is another service that we think is more problematic than effective. Basically, Barracuda can block emails that contain social security numbers, credit card numbers, phone numbers, etc. Here's the problem with it: it's prone to false positives, and trivial to bypass. At best it offers a false sense of security. Here's something from their own documentation:
◦ Credit Cards - Messages sent through the Barracuda Email Security Service containing recognizable
Master Card, Visa, American Express, Diners Club or Discover card numbers will be subject to the
action you choose.
◦ Social Security - Messages sent with valid social security numbers will be subject to the action you
choose. U.S. Social Security Numbers (SSN) must be entered in the format nnn-nn-nnnn.
◦ Privacy - Messages will be subject to the action you choose if they contain two or more of the following data types, using common U.S. data patterns only: credit cards (including Japanese Credit Bureau), expiration date, date of birth, Social Security number, driver's license number, or phone number. Phone numbers must be entered in the format nnn-nnn-nnnn or (nnn)nnn-nnnn or nnn.nnn.nnnn .
◦ HIPAA - Messages will be subject to the action you choose if they contain TWO of the types of items as described in Privacy above and ONE medical term.
Note that Social Security numbers have to be formatted as nnn-nn-nnnn. If you send one through like this: 123-123-123, it will go through, because it's formatted just a little bit differently. Same thing with phone numbers or credit card numbers.
Items for consideration:
1. RBLs:
They use the Barracuda RBL. If an IP address is on that list, it is blocked outright. We looked at using this one, but decided not too -- because we don't believe in blacklists that charge you for removal:
http://joystickjunkie.blogspot.com/2010/04/emailregorg-is-scam.html
They allow you to add your own RBLs, but you're responsible for them. You have to keep them up to date, know the reputations and accuracy of each, etc., but they will block a message if it's listed in an RBL you specify.
We use 39 different RBLs. Very few are used for outright blocking - instead, we use them to add to the overall spamscore of a message. This reduces false positives and allows us to use the presence of an address on a particular blacklist in combination with other rules to give us much more accurate filtering. We manage these all actively, and we go in and selectively override RBLs or even individual entries as necessary if we perceive an inaccuracy in a third-party RBL.
2. Filtering philosophy:
They have different methods, which are rather binary - something is spam, or it is not. If a message fails any of those, a message is blocked. RBL, Reputation, Content - each just blocks the message. You can enable or disable each, but that's it.
We believe that no filtering method is perfect, and certainly few are worthy enough to be used to determine if a message is spam or clean by itself. We use all the kinds of technologies they use, but we integrate them into a complete system.
Each component not only contributes to the overall score of a message, a part of one component can be tied to another unrelated one, if we find that it statistically increases the chance of recognizing that something is clean or something is spam. For example, a listing of an IP address in a range of dynamic IP addresses is not enough to block a message, but it will contribute to an overall score. But if we find that the IP address is in a dynamic address range, and we see that the date formatting of the message is off, or that the sending mailserver is a windows XP machine, then that combination of three things adds another larger score to the overall message, because it's a pattern we've discerned by analyzing billions of email messages.
3. User configurability
User settings on the Barracuda ESS are limited to enabling disable quarantine notifications, and black/whitelists.
Messages may be passed along or quarantined.
Our system is completely configurable for each and every end user. Individual filters can be enabled or disabled, spam quarantine cutoffs can be adjusted, etc. We give the end-user account settings as much control as the default account settings.
We allow messages to be quarantined, or delivered with subject lines rewritten, delivered with a "plus address extension" (if you want spam delivered to user+spam@domain.com, you can do that), and we allow the recipient to optionally receive notifications when particular types of messages are blocked and/or quarantined.
4. Integrated Sender and Recipient Filtering
We're able to use the information in your outbound mail to improve the accuracy of your inbound filtering, for reduced false positives.
5. API
They don't have one. We do. Ours can control every aspect of our service. It's how we implemented your custom feature - the one that allows a subset of your users to only receive email from specific senders.
By the way - here's something I, Thomas Johnson, sent a colleague about emailreg.org a while back:
EmailReg.org – another of those paid whitelist companies – is actually Barracuda. They charge you to get on their whitelist! We will not use their blacklists if this is their policy; we don't use any blacklist that charges for removal, or whitelist that charges for being listed. That's not how we do business.
How do I know it's Barracuda?
new-host:~ tj$ dig +short a emailreg.org
64.235.146.64
new-host:~ tj$ whois 64.235.146.64
#
# ARIN WHOIS data and services are subject to the Terms of Use
# available at: https://www.arin.net/whois_tou.html
#
#
# Query terms are ambiguous. The query is assumed to be:
# "n 64.235.146.64"
#
# Use "?" to get help.
#
#
# The following results may also be obtained via:
# http://whois.arin.net/rest/nets;q=64.235.146.64?showDetails=true&showARIN=false&ext=netref2
#
NetRange: 64.235.144.0 - 64.235.159.255
CIDR: 64.235.144.0/20
OriginAS: AS15324
NetName: BARRAUCDA
NetHandle: NET-64-235-144-0-1
Parent: NET-64-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
Comment: http://www.barracuda.com/
RegDate: 2006-10-31
Updated: 2012-02-24
Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-64-235-144-0-1
OrgName: Barracuda Networks, Inc.
OrgId: BARRA-7
Address: 3175 S. Winchester Blvd
City: Campbell
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 95008
Country: US
RegDate: 2005-08-29
Updated: 2011-09-24
Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/BARRA-7
OrgAbuseHandle: BARRA1-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Barracuda Hostmaster
OrgAbusePhone: +1-408-342-5405
OrgAbuseEmail: hostmaster@barracuda.com
OrgAbuseRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/BARRA1-ARIN
OrgTechHandle: BARRA1-ARIN
OrgTechName: Barracuda Hostmaster
OrgTechPhone: +1-408-342-5405
OrgTechEmail: hostmaster@barracuda.com
OrgTechRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/BARRA1-ARIN
RTechHandle: BARRA1-ARIN
RTechName: Barracuda Hostmaster
RTechPhone: +1-408-342-5405
RTechEmail: hostmaster@barracuda.com
RTechRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/BARRA1-ARIN
RAbuseHandle: BARRA1-ARIN
RAbuseName: Barracuda Hostmaster
RAbusePhone: +1-408-342-5405
RAbuseEmail: hostmaster@barracuda.com
RAbuseRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/BARRA1-ARIN
RNOCHandle: BARRA1-ARIN
RNOCName: Barracuda Hostmaster
RNOCPhone: +1-408-342-5405
RNOCEmail: hostmaster@barracuda.com
RNOCRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/BARRA1-ARIN
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