Psbl Blacklist Removal
The Passive Spam Block List – What Is My IP Address
Summary
Status:
Active
Terms:
Free
Zones:
1
Website:
Lookup:
Removal:
FAQ:
Background, also known as The Passive Spam Block List, is a relatively new blacklist to the DNSBL scene. Like most other blacklists, uses spamtraps and honeypots to gather it’s listing criteria. is an IP address based block list, and does not list URI’s or URL’s. At the time of this writing, more than 500, 000 emails per day are used as part of the analytics process in determining if an IP address should be listed or not.
While any mail server can and will be listed, like other DNS blacklists, maintains an internal whitelist of host IP addresses that can never be listed. They also work with the well known to compare their lists to be sure a vetted whitelisted sender can not be listed. Somewhat unique to is that upon listing, the tools provided to you for delisting offer data on how the initial listing was obtained. While the source address of the spamtrap that was sent to will not be revealed, significant information is given to aid in helping an email administrator track down the offending sender, and take action to make sure that a listing is not likely to happen again.
Listing criteria
To become listed in the zone an email server must send an email to a spamtrap or honeypot address. At that time, the IP address of the sending server will be listed. Virus and bounce messages are filtered out of the system, leaving more than 99% of the listed addresses being confirmed as spam.
Zones
Use of this zone is like any other DNS blacklist. Have your email server query; any positive DNS response correlates with a listing.
Removal Process
Removal from is one of the simpler processes compared to other DNS blacklists. By requesting removal through the removal form, your IP address will be removed from the DNS database. This process generally takes about one hour. However, care should be taken to look at the listing criteria that was used to determine why it was deemed necessary to list your IP address. While removal is simple, it does not mean that you will not be listed again, if spam is again seen coming from your IP address.
The only other way to be removed from is through natural expiration. If no spam is seen coming from your IP address to an internal spam trap, in approximately two to three weeks the address will automatically expire from the system. According to, natural delisting is how more than 99% of their listings are removed. This can be interpreted into this being a high quality list with low false positives. Only aggressive spammers do not bother to work to have their IP address removed from a blacklist. If the majority of listings are naturally and automatically expiring, it is safe to conclude that the majority of the IP addresses are all spammers.
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General blacklist removal instructions
Check to see if an IP is blacklisted
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What is a DNSBL (blacklist)?
Ask for help to diagnose and resolve listing issues
psbl.surriel.com | GlockApps
The Passive Spam Block List
Status:
Active
Website:
Removal:, also known as The Passive Spam Block List, is a relatively new blacklist to the DNSBL scene. Like most other blacklists, uses spamtraps and honeypots to gather its listing criteria. is an IP address based block list, and does not list URI’s or URL’s.
Listing Policy
To become listed in the zone an email server must send an email to a spamtrap or honeypot address. At that time, the IP address of the sending server will be listed. Virus and bounce messages are filtered out of the system, leaving more than 99% of the listed addresses being confirmed as spam.
The 8 Email Blacklists You Should Actually Care About – rackAID
Email blacklists are everywhere. There are so many of them, chances are your server’s IP address is listed on one of them right now. In fact, some of our own IPs are on some email blacklists as I write this. Am I worried? No.
Many email blacklists tools try to impress you with a long list DNS-Based Realtime Blacklists (DNSRBL). I’ve seen a few tools check nearly 100 lists. In fact, our own email blacklist monitoring service checks 100+ list.
While some smaller list may prove useful on occassion, there are only 8 email blacklists you really need to care about.
The rest of them are so rarely used that your email is not likely impacted by them. So try to resist that human compulsion to get that clean slate on your favorite check tool and focus on the eight most important email blacklists.
You may notice that the Gmail Blacklist and Yahoo Blacklist are not on the list below. Many of your major email service providers do not make their blacklists public. You only know about a blacklist because you get an email bounce.
If your server’s IP lands on these email blacklists, you will almost certainly have delivery issues.
1. Composite Blocking List (CBL)
This list is maintained by Spamhaus. The CBL only blacklists IPs that exhibit malicious behavior, such as spam bots, dictionary attacks, open proxies and similar attacks. We often see IPs on this list after a web application compromise. Many hackers run dictionary or open proxies after hacking web sites. If they hit servers monitored by the CBL, the server’s IP will be added to the list.
CBL Removal Process: Easy
See our CBL Blacklist removal page to learn how to remove your IP from the CBL.
You just have to submit your IP for removal but if your system is still spamming, you will be listed again very quickly.
2. Spamhaus Block List (SBL)
The SBL Spamhaus list includes email from know spam operations, sources and services. They also use spamtraps – email addresses which do not belong to real users. If your server or web site is hacked, spammers will often flood 10, 000’s of emails from your system. If these hit an SBL spamtrap, expect your server’s IP to be listed.
SBL Removal Process: Varies
See our Spamhaus Blacklist Removal Instructions post for details on how to remove your IP fro the SBL. The exact process depends on which lists (SBL, XBL, PBL) that you are on. In some cases, only your service provider who controls the IP range can request removal.
3. XBL Exploits Block List
The XBL mainly lists hijacked IP addresses. While these are typically PCs and not servers, we do see servers listed. If a PC is hacked but uses your server as the SMTP gateway or if your server itself is used as a spam gateway, your server’s IP may land in the XBL.
XBL Removal Process: Easy
You can use the Spamhaus Blocklist Removal Center to get more details on the removal process.
4. Spamcop
Spamcop primarily uses spamtraps and spam reports to generate a reputation score. If your score drops too low, your IP will be included in their list. They balance spam reports with your reputation points to try to avoid just one or two reports triggering the list. Generally, if your IP is in this list, you have a security issue. A web site or user send out 100’s or 1000’s of spam messages.
Spamcop Removal Process: Automatic
Unlike other providers, there is no manual removal process from Spamcop. Since they use a scoring mechanism, they will automatically remove your IP once you stop the spam source. In our email blacklist removal work, we usually see removals happen within 48 hours after the spam is stopped. If you want to expedite removal, see our SpamCop Blacklist Removal Instructions post.
5. Passive Spam Block List (PSBL)
They call the PSBL they easy-on, easy-off blacklist. They do not do the traditional testing and scoring but simply rely on spamtraps. If you server emails their spamtrap, your server’s IP will be blacklisted. You can then easily request removal.
PSBL Removal Process: Very Easy
Just submit your IP to the PSBL removal form and your IP is removed. Note that it may take 24-48 hours for other systems to pick up the change.
6. Invaluement
Invluement runs a number of lists, ivmURI (domain-based), ivmSIP (ip-based) and ivmSIP/24 (network-based). The ivmSIP is the IP-based blacklist that mainly list IPs with a high spam percentage. If your server is on this list, you likely have an email compromise. ivmSIP/24 is a network based blacklist designed to target spammers who spread their emails over a large number of IPs, so-called snowshoe spammers. While they try to avoid false positives, if your server has bad IP neighbors, you may find your IP in this list.
ivmSIP Removal Process: Very Easy
See our Invalument Blacklist Removal instructions for details.
7. Barracuda
This is the blacklist resource that powers the popular Barracuda Anti-spam appliances. They also make their list available for others to use via BarracudaCentral. Many web-hosting systems, such as cPanel use this list by default. Most IP addresses are listed by sending spam directly to Barracuda Reputation System’s detectors. These are honeypots, spamtraps and other systems that allow Barracuda to identify spam sources. As with other lists, your inclusion in their blacklist is often due to a security issue on your server. Check out our Barracuda Blacklist Removal page for more details.
Barracuda Blacklist Process: Very Easy
8. SenderScore
This is Return Path’s sender reputation system. SenderScore is used by a number of large email service providers, corporate email systems, email marketing service providers and others to score emails. If your score in their system drops below 85, you will likely have delivery issues. Unlike email blacklists, no blocking is done directly based on your SenderScore. Instead, the score is fed into spam identification systems to help determine if your email should be blocked or not. Low scores can also result in your email being routed to the spam folder.
Sender Score Reset: None
Only in exceptional cases will Return Path reset your score. In general, we see improvements within 2-3 days after stopping the spam. In cases of very high spam volumes, a long recovery period may be needed.
Why These Email Blacklists?
Based on research by Return Path, Sendgrid, Proofpoint and other major email service providers, these email blacklists have been shown to influence email delivery to Yahoo!, Gmail, Microsoft and other major providers. If your IP lands on of of the lists, especially Spamhaus’ lists, you will have wide spread delivery issues.
Spamcop & CBL are used by default in many shared hosting control panels like cPanel. If you are dealing with small businesses, they may have their email with a shared host using these email blacklists. WHM/cPanel supports Spamcop and Spamhaus Zen lists. The Zen list is an aggregate list of all Spamhaus list which also includes the CBL.
Barracuda is used by a number of larger businesses and cloud-based email security services. If you are doing business with larger companies, they may be protecting their email with a Barracuda anti-spam appliance. Barracuda also makes their list available to others, so even if the recipient server is not using their appliance, they could still be using their data.
Return Path’s sender score reputation system is used by a number of other filtering technologies. In general, when we see scores below 85, we start to see email delivery issues at a large number of providers, especially Yahoo!, MSN and Gmail. Keeping a healthy sender score is key to good email delivery. I
The Invaluent and PSBL are thought to be feeder tools used by other systems. Some research indicates that Google may take clues from the PSBL.
Are you Listed?
If your server IP is listed, if so, you can use any number of popular blacklist check tools. We regularly use:
The Anti-Abuse Projects Multi RBL Tool
Multirbl
If you are listed, you may find that your IP is on the Gmail Blacklist or the Yahoo Blacklist. Both of these email service providers, as well as ATT’s Blacklist, take signals from Spamhaus and SenderScore.
Summary
If your IP is not on any of these blacklists and you don’t have email bounces from other lists, don’t worry about it.
