This article lists the DNS Blacklist, SURBLs, and External Agents Vamsoft recommends to use. Enabling these will ensure high spam catch rate while keeping the false positive rate at a minimum.

If any of the blacklists recommended below are missing from your configuration, please update your definitions by following the steps described in our related KB article.

Recommended DNSBLs

Find the list of the currently recommended DNS Blacklists below. You can enable these in the Administration Tool on the Blacklists / DNS Blacklists page:

Basic set

We recommend using at least the following DNSBLs (in this specific order).

• Spamhaus ZEN
• Barracuda Reputation Block List
• Passive Spam Block List

Further recommended DNSBLs

Using one or more of the blacklists listed in this section can give a further boost to your spam filtering. Please consider that we recommend using no more than 4-6 DNSBLs at once.

• Mailspike Combined List
• GBUdb.com Truncate

Recommended SURBLs

Please find the list of the currently recommended SURBLs below. You can enable these in the Administration Tool on the Blacklists / SURBL Test page:

• Spamhaus DBL
• Spamhaus ZRD (via DQS)
• SURBL: Combined

Recommended External Agents

Please find the list of the currently recommended External Agents below. You can enable these in the Administration Tool on the Blacklists / External Agents page after downloading their definition file and importing them:

• Vamsoft "Self-Spam Agent" (more information and download link)
• Vamsoft "Backscatter Protection Agent" (more information and download link)

Blacklist Licensing

Before enabling a DNSBL or SURBL in ORF, make sure to visit its website (available from ORF for each DNSBL/SURBL) to see if you qualify for free use.

Blacklist Statistics

We also recommend reviewing the current statistics to see how effective these lists are based on anonymous statistics collected from ORF installations all over the world.

Best Practices

A good selection of DNSBLs, SURBLs and External Agents can go a long way, but ORF can do more: make sure to read the Best Practices Guide to find further useful tips for more performance.