Thames Cloud Services takes email spam very seriously and has developed a policy to help protect, prevent, and control incidents that have lasting effects on the health of our servers.

Unintentional Spam

All customers are responsible for the email activity on their account, even if it is unintentional. The majority of unintentional spam email comes from websites that have been compromised by an attacker. Most of these incidents come from running outdated WordPress software including outdated plugins and/or themes.

It is the customer’s responsibility to actively update and patch third party software applications as they’re released. Failure to do so can lead to a compromised website.

Strong Passwords

Spam that doesn’t originate from compromised websites often stems from user’s having weak/un-secure cPanel, email, and other passwords. All passwords used should be generated using the password generator inside of cPanel.

It is the customer’s responsibility to ensure all passwords used across services are strong and updated regularly.

Three Strike System

To increase our server email delivery rate, Thames Cloud Services has developed a three-strike system for our customers.

Strike 1: First Offense – 24 Hour Suspension

If Spam is detected from your cPanel account it will immediately be suspended for a full 24 hours to allow our team to begin assessing the damage to our network.

The 24 hour suspension will be lifted once we have made contact with the account owner via our ticket system. We will provide the customer will details that need to be taken to resolve the issue and get their website back online.

Most of the time this includes, scanning local computer, changing all passwords, and updating third-party software on the cPanel account.

Strike 2: Second Offense – Professional Account Cleaning

If Spam is detected a second time from your account it will also immediately be suspended for 24 hours to begin our damage control.

Once again, we will wait to lift the suspension until we have verified the customer has been made aware of actions necessary to stop the outgoing emails.

At this time we will recommend an “account cleaning” which can be conducted by our team for our hourly server administrative rate of £65 or we will recommend a trusted third-party that specializes in account security.

Strike 3: Third Offense – Account Termination

Unfortunately, if spam is detected a third time the account will be suspended and terminated within 48 hours.

Customers that don’t maintain good security practices with their accounts put our entire network at risk. Therefore we cannot continue to work with individuals who continually allow their sites to engage in illegal behaviour.

In accordance with our Terms of Service, we will be unable to offer these customers a refund but can provide a backup of the site in its current state.