About Spamhaus

About Spamhaus

The Spamhaus Project is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to track the Internet's spam operations, to provide dependable realtime anti-spam protection for Internet networks, to work with Law Enforcement Agencies to identify and pursue spammers worldwide, and to lobby governments for effective anti-spam legislation.

Founded in 1998, Spamhaus is based in Geneva, Switzerland and London, UK and is run by a dedicated team of 26 investigators and forensics specialists located in 10 countries.

Spamhaus publishes the Register Of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) - a database collating information and evidence on the '100' known worst spam gangs worldwide, used by ISPs to avoid signing up known spammers who would abuse their networks and by Law Enforcement Agencies to help target and mount prosecutions against professional spammers.

Spamhaus Userbase

At 21 Nov 2008 the Spamhaus DNSBLs are protecting 1,431,862,000
user mailboxes

Source: Spamhaus DataFeed service

Spamhaus maintains a number of realtime spam-blocking databases ('DNSBLs') responsible daily for keeping back the vast majority of spam sent out on the internet. These include the Spamhaus Block List (SBL), the Exploits Block List (XBL) and the Policy Block List (PBL). These DNSBLs are now used by the majority of the Internet's Email Service Providers, Corporations, Universities, Governments and Military networks.

To meet public demand for its DNSBLs, Spamhaus has built one of the biggest DNS infrastructures in the world. Its network of over 45 public DNSBL servers spread across 18 countries serves many billions of DNSBL queries to the world every day, free of charge. The collective number of internet users whose mailboxes are protected by the Spamhaus DNSBLs is published under 'Spamhaus Userbase' on the left of this page.

Funding for operations is through sponsors and donations. International infrastructure is provided courtesy of industry sponsors and autonomous logistics organizations that manage services utilizing Spamhaus data and technologies to the spam filter industry.

Spamhaus CEO Steve Linford speaking at the European Parliament (Brussels).

Spamhaus works with Law Enforcement cyber-crimes teams worldwide, assisting investigations into phishing, botnets and malware operations and compiling evidence on illegal spam operations. Our main LE working partners are:

National Cyber-Forensics
and Training Alliance

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Serious Organized
Crime Agency

Spamhaus is also a member of a number of Law Enforcement and Internet Industry work groups set up to deal with spam issues, including:

London Action Plan (LAP)

Messaging Anti-Abuse
Working Group

Anti-Phishing Working Group