Introduction

abuse.ch AG and its partner Spamhaus Technology Limited (for the purpose of this policy referred to as "abuse.ch" and "Spamhaus" respectively and together "we", "us", "our") respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal information. Please see our company information in the next section of this policy.

This privacy policy will inform you as to how we look after your personal information when you visit or interact with our websites [and associated platforms at abuse.ch, bazaar.abuse.ch, feodotracker.abuse.ch, sslbl.abuse.ch, urlhaus.abuse.ch, threatfox.abuse.ch, yaraify.abuse.ch, hunting.abuse.ch (together our “Platforms”)], (regardless of where you visit from).

This privacy policy is provided in a layered format so you can click through to the specific areas set out below. Please also use the Glossary to understand the meaning of some of the terms used in this privacy policy.

• IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND WHO WE ARE
• WHAT ARE THE PROCESSING ROLES OF ABUSE.CH AND SPAMHAUS?
• THE DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU
• HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED?
• HOW AND WHY WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
• SHARING OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
• INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS
• DATA SECURITY
• DATA RETENTION
• YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS
• GLOSSARY

1. Important information and who we are

PURPOSE OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY

This privacy policy gives you information on how abuse.ch and Spamhaus collects, uses, discloses and otherwise processes your personal information through your use and interaction with https://abuse.ch and its associated Platforms.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy policy or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy policy supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

JOINT CONTROLLERS

abuse.ch and Spamhaus are joint controllers of your personal information collected via or processed in connection with the website and the Platforms. As controllers, we work together to decide why and how your personal information is processed and we are jointly responsible to you under law for ensuring that your privacy and personal information are protected.

Spamhaus does not conduct all of its processing as a joint controller with abuse.ch. Spamhaus makes decisions for certain processing of your personal information independently of abuse.ch, for which Spamhaus is solely responsible. Please visit the Spamhaus Privacy Policy to find out more about its independent processing. abuse.ch does not undertake any activities relating to the use of the website and the Platforms as an independent controller.

CONTACT DETAILS

We have appointed a data privacy manager who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy on behalf of both Spamhaus and abuse.ch. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights against either joint controller, use the contact form available here to contact the data privacy manager.

Our full details are:

• abuse.ch of c/o Grant Thornton AG, Claridenstrasse 35, CH-8002 Zürich, Switzerland; and
• Spamhaus Technology Limited, company number 05078652 of 4 Old Park Lane, Mayfair, London W1K 1QW.

CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY NOTICE AND YOUR DUTY TO INFORM US OF CHANGES

This version was last updated on 21st February 2025.

THIRD-PARTY LINKS

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements or practices. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

2. What are the processing roles of abuse.ch and Spamhaus?

abuse.ch and Spamhaus have different roles in connection with the processing of your information. abuse.ch collects your information as described in Section 4 (How is your personal information collected) and information is shared with Spamhaus to: respond to enquiries, provide support in relation to our services, operate our systems and improve the way we work. abuse.ch is the business that has primary responsibility for collecting the information but Spamhaus is responsible for the governance and management of the day-to-day handling of your personal information.

As a result, abuse.ch is responsible for the following activities relating to the processing of your personal information for this purpose:

• Ensuring it has the legal grounds in place to share your personal information with Spamhaus and that the purposes for which the information is shared complies with the data protection principles under applicable laws;
• Producing this policy jointly with Spamhaus; and
• Presenting this policy to you, including any updates, as required by applicable laws.

Spamhaus's data protection responsibilities to you include:

• Acting as your main point of contact for any queries you may have relating to this policy;
• Ensuring that it has the legal grounds to use your personal information in the ways described in this policy;
• Producing this statement jointly with abuse.ch;
• Responding to your requests when you exercise your data protection rights and submit such requests to Spamhaus (see further below regarding these rights); and
• Ensuring that the personal information it stores is secured and retained in accordance with data protection laws.

3. The data we collect about you

Personal information means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified or that relates to you. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal information about you which we have grouped together follows:

• Identity Data - includes first name, last name and username or similar identifier.
• Contact Data - includes postal address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
• Technical Data - includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
• Profile Data - includes your username and password, requests made by you, and any account preferences.
• Usage Data - includes information about how you use our website, products and services.
• Enquiry Information - includes any information included within and relating to your contact/enquiry with us.

We also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated data may be derived from your personal information but is not considered personal information in law where it cannot be linked to you. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website or Platform feature. However, if we combine or connect aggregated data with your personal information, we treat the combined data as personal information which will be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

We do not collect any special categories of personal information about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data), nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

IF YOU FAIL TO PROVIDE PERSONAL INFORMATION

Where we need to collect personal information under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

4. How is your personal information collected

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

Direct interactions: You may give us your Identity and Contact Data by filling in forms, by corresponding with us through the contact form, authentication portal and Slack channels. This includes personal information you provide when you:

• Sign up for an abuse.ch account and authenticate as a user of abuse.ch or our Platforms;
• provide notification of a false positive on any resource listed on abuse.ch and our associated Platforms;
• submit Indicators of Compromises (IOCs), malware files, or YARA rules or any other cyber threat-related intelligence data via any of abuse.ch’s related platforms;
• submit information relating to abuse.ch to Spamhaus via the contact form via our website;
• report a problem with our website;
• disclose or share information or comment on our closed Slack channel; or
• give us some feedback.

Automated technologies or interactions: As you interact with our website, we may collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal information by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.

Third parties or publicly available sources: We may receive personal information about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:

• Technical Data from Google Analytics and Cloudflare.
• Identity Data and Profile Data from X, Google, LinkedIn or Github to login or authenticate a login to your account.
• Identity and Contact Data from publicly available sources such as Companies House and Whois.

5. How and why we use your personal information

We will only use your personal information when we have a valid legal reason to process your personal information (known as a ‘lawful basis’) The purposes for which we use your personal information and (where relevant) the lawful basis on which we rely, is set out in the table below.

Note that we may process your personal information for more than one lawful basis depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data.

Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal information where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Where we rely on consent as a lawful basis (set out above), you may at any time withdraw your consent for us to use your information in any of the ways set out above. Please see Your Legal Rights for further details.

COOKIES

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our cookie policy.

6. Sharing of your personal information

We may have to share your personal information with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in Section 5 above.

• Internal Third Parties as set out in the Glossary.
• External Third Parties as set out in the Glossary.
• Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them.
• Third parties to whom we are under a duty to disclose or share your information in order to comply with any legal or regulatory obligation or request, including by the police, tribunals, regulators, the government or related agencies.

7. International transfers

Many of our Internal Third Parties and External Third Parties are based outside the UK and Switzerland so their processing of your personal information will involve a transfer of data outside these countries, which may not protect your personal information and privacy to the same standard. In accordance with applicable data protection laws, we implement measures imposing conditions on the recipient, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, Swiss, EU and other standard contractual clauses or declarations by regulators or governments (e.g. adequacy decisions) to ensure that any transferred personal information remains protected and secure and your rights are protected.

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal information outside of the UK and Switzerland.

8. Data security

SECURITY MEASURES

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal information breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

9. Data retention

HOW LONG WILL YOU RETAIN MY PERSONAL INFORMATION FOR?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal information, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements. In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Request erasure below for further information.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

10. Your legal rights

You have a number of rights personal informationunder data protection laws in relation to your personal information, some of which may only apply in certain circumstances. You have the right to:

Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you. We may not provide you with a copy of your personal information if this concerns other individuals or we have another lawful reason to withhold that information.

Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal information to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and you want to object to processing on this ground. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

Request restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal information in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it. In these situations, we may only process your Personal Information whilst its processing is restricted if we have your consent or are legally permitted to do so, for example for storage purposes, to protect the rights of another individual or company or in connection with legal proceedings.

Request the transfer of your personal information to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal information in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal information. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent. If you would like to withdraw your consent to receiving any direct marketing to which you previously opted-in, you can also do so using our unsubscribe tool.

You also have rights in relation to automated decision making that has a legal or significant effect on you using purely automated means. We do not envisage making any such decisions about you. However, we will update this privacy policy and inform you if this position changes.

Complain to a data protection regulator (which in the UK is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and in Switzerland is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC)) if you are concerned about the way we have processed your personal information. Please visit the ICO or the FDPIC’s website for further details.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please use the contact form to contact the data privacy manager.

NO FEE USUALLY REQUIRED

You will not usually have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

WHAT WE MAY NEED FROM YOU

We will need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity when you exercise your right to access your personal information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

TIME LIMIT TO RESPOND

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

11. Glossary

LAWFUL BASIS

Legitimate Interest means in your interests, or the interests of our business. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal information for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal information for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal information where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

Consent means processing your personal information where we have obtained your express consent to do so for that particular processing activity.

THIRD PARTIES

Internal third parties

Other companies in the Spamhaus group of companies, and who are based in London and the United States, provide IT and system administration services and undertake leadership reporting.

External third parties

• Service providers acting as processors based in the Netherlands and the US who provide IT and system administration services.
• Professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.