What is 'Harvesting'?

Email harvesting is the process of obtaining lists of email addresses using various methods for use in bulk email or other purposes usually grouped as spam.

A common method is the use of special software known as "harvesting bots" or "harvesters", which spider web pages, mailing list archives, internet forums and other online sources to obtain email addresses from public data.

Another method addresses, known as a directory harvest attack, works by connecting to mailservers and guessing an email address using common usernames in email addresses at that domain.

Why would this be bad?

Sending unsolicited email to recipients gathered by means of harvesting is illegal and not allowed by our terms of service.

Recommended action

If you are in fact knowingly harvesting email addresses, we recommend you to stop doing that to prevent further escalation.

Tips to resolve this matter

If this is not the case, make sure your server and your hosted websites have not been compromised.

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