Service Updates
Any changes to how our services operate are detailed below:
From April 2017, customers who make use of our Outbound SMTP Service for “normal” Internet email, but who don’t pay for our email hosting, will be charged £6.50/m ex. VAT. In the majority of cases, this applies to customers of BT Internet, who insist on domains being registered with themselves, or added to a “safe-list”, before they’ll allow their servers to send out with your email address in the “From:” line. This charge is to contribute to the ongoing costs of running this service. If you are unhappy with this charge, please ensure your ISP allows outgoing emails with your email address in the “From:” line and we can update your Smart-Host settings.
With immediate effect, our Exchange and Linux mail hosting platforms will no longer send NDR’s (Non-Delivery Receipts) when email is sent to an invalid address. This is to reduce the number of NDR’s we’re sending out to the Internet as a result of spammers sending to invalid addresses (so called “Backscatter”). This change is due to the number of occassions our mail server IP addresses have ended up on Internet blacklists. Preventing this occuring stops legitimate customer email being “bounced” by remote sites, and/or us needing to send mail via alternative routes. Wikipedia has more information on Backscatter.
With immediate effect, FTP connections to web hosting accounts must be made using “passive” FTP. This is to bring these accounts inline with our Remote Backup FTP service. For your reference, the server details to connect to each service are:
Web Hosting: www.example.com – Port 21 (Where example.com is your own domain name)
(Supports both insecure/plain FTP and secure FTP over TLS)
Usernames are in the format “uxxxxxxxxxxxxxx“
Remote Backups: remotebackups.pctrends.com – Port 521
Usernames are in the format “ftpbackup-xxxxxxx“
With immediate effect, any WordPress sites hosted by us will lock out after 10 incorrect login attempts. This action is to reduce the chances of a successful dictionary attack, where hackers repeatedly try different combinations of username/password to gain access to administration areas. This block takes affect at our firewall and will block access to ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS) from the misbehaving IP address. If you are adversely affected by this change, please contact us to remove the block, or wait 24 hours.
