Today we have upgraded the TLS (Transport Layer Security) of our incoming email servers to support version 1.2, which is the most recent. This means that when email is sent to Runbox from other services, the highest level of encryption will be used if the other service supports it.
This also means that all communication between your email program and Runbox now uses TLS 1.2 (if supported by your email program).
As part of our ongoing fight against spam, Runbox has recently deployed a new cluster of spam filter servers and made a few changes to how we deal with spam.
We now block a lot more spam by rejecting connections from servers that are known to send spam. Most of these connections are from virus infected computers, and it is relatively easy to identify these machines via their IP addresses.
Another change we’ve made is to upgrade SpamAssassin so that it performs more extensive checks of incoming mail.
This is the first among several steps we are taking to clear your Inbox of spam, and we will post more news about this in the near future.
We’ve also decided to tighten our policies on bulk mailing using Runbox’ outgoing email servers to prevent Runbox from ending up on blacklists used by other email services.
As email use continues to grow and more people around the world are online, so does the amount of email sent for marketing and promotional reasons. Often mailing lists are badly managed and people receive email they no longer want, so they mark them as spam instead of unsubscribing from them.
Meanwhile spam systems are getting smarter, and email providers create statistics from the actions of their customers. If a customer marks a message as spam (whether it is spam or not), this is recorded in a database, and it can result in those domains and server IP addresses being blocked.
Only a very small number of Runbox customers use our services for marketing and promotional messages, but this can still have an adverse affect on all Runbox customers. Therefore we have decided that Runbox can no longer be used for bulk mailing, and we are now changing our Terms of Service to reflect this.
If you are using, or are planning to use, Runbox for bulk mailings, please see our page about Bulk Mailing and contact Runbox Support.
We’re about to start a new year and we’d like to take the opportunity to thank you for your business in 2015 and provide a quick status update.
We’ve spent much of the year steadily growing and improving our email services, mainly focusing on our new IMAP services and improving our server infrastructure.
Additionally, we have been developing 2FA support, working on a new spam filter, and implementing calendar services. These projects are now close to completion, and we expect them to be ready for beta testing early in the new year.
We have also had some other events worth mentioning, such as a new front page that sets Runbox apart from the crowd, a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack from a group that tried to extort USD 5000 from us but who later gave up and apologized, and being mentioned in The New York Times, Forbes, and The Washington Post as a service focusing on security and privacy.
Furthermore, we have improved our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy to better reflect how Runbox protects the privacy of our customers, and we have explained how our email services are powered by 100% certified renewable energy sources.
And, if you haven’t tried the Aero webmail theme yet, you are definitely missing out!
We plan to make next year even better than this one, so stay tuned…
We are currently being attacked again, and are working with our partners to deflect the attack. At the moment our email services are inaccessible.
We greatly appreciate your support and will do everything we can to resume normal operations.
If you can’t reach our regular websites, please see http://status.runbox.com and https://twitter.com/Runbox for updates.
On Monday, October 12 at 0600 CEST we will replace an email storage unit, and our email services will unfortunately not be accessible while we switch servers.
The downtime will start at approximately 0600 CEST (0400 GMT, 0000 EDT) and last for 30-45 minutes.
Runbox will accept incoming email to your account during the downtime, and those messages will be delivered when the operation is complete. It will however not be possible to send email.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused, and recommend that you check your email before or after the scheduled maintenance window.
To find the local time where you are for this maintenance, please see the time conversion at timeanddate.com
If you receive messages with the subject “ATTN: RUNBOX ACCOUNT USER” that appears to have been sent from “RUNBOX HELPDESK“, please delete them.
We are deleting all the instances of these messages we can find on the Runbox servers, but we might miss some.
These messages are not sent from Runbox staff and are an attempt to trick Runbox customers into entering their login information at malicious websites.
For more information about phishing, please see the Phishing section of this article.
After doing some tuning to our central database yesterday we have been able to increase the speed of all our email services significantly.
This is especially noticeable when using the Webmail, but email clients using IMAP and POP should also be faster.
This was made possible because Runbox is a database accelerated email system, where all basic message data is stored in a central database. This means that our various services don’t have to open any actual files on the storage units to display folder contents. Only when a message is opened do the services access the message files themselves.
We’d be interested in hearing if Runbox is running faster for you. Meanwhile we’ll continue working to improve the performance of our services!
Due to necessary reorganization of our email server infrastructure, all Runbox email services will be inaccessible for a short period on Monday 17.08 at around 06:00 CEST (04:00 GMT, 0:00 EDT).
The downtime should last less than 5 minutes.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
If you receive messages with the subject “Pending message” that appears to have been sent from “Runbox Admin” <cusdept@nullrunbox.com>
or
Subject “Account Update” that appears to come from “MEMBERSHIP SERVICE” <membership@nullrbox.com>, please delete them.
We are deleting all the instances of these messages we can find on the Runbox servers, but we might miss some.
These messages are not sent from Runbox staff and are an attempt to trick Runbox customers into entering their login information at malicious websites.
For more information about phishing, please see the Phishing section of this article.
As you may have noticed we have upgraded our front page to better convey Runbox’ offering and our values. We hope you like it!
If you would like a simpler login screen, just click the “Simple Login” link underneath the login area (which you can then bookmark in your browser).
