SORBS has been dead since 2024
If your mail log, a bounce message, or an old article online mentions SORBS: that service no longer exists. Proofpoint, its operator, officially discontinued it on June 5, 2024, completely emptying its 18 DNS zones.
💡 There's no delisting process because there's nothing to be delisted from. Any guide you find online describing "how to get off SORBS" describes a process that no longer applies to any real service.
Why do I still see SORBS mentioned?
Some mail servers (especially old Postfix or Exim setups) still have references to dnsbl.sorbs.net in their anti-spam filter configuration, simply because no one has cleaned them up since before 2024.
The real problem: unnecessary latency
If your server still queries SORBS zones, you get no filtering benefit — the zones are empty, so they'll never block anything. The only thing you're achieving is adding latency to every incoming connection, because your server waits for a DNS response that takes time to arrive from a service that no longer operates actively.
What to do
- Check your anti-spam filter configuration (Postfix, Exim, SpamAssassin, or your hosting provider's panel)
- Look for any reference to
sorbs.net - Remove those configuration lines
- Replace that check with Spamhaus ZEN (
zen.spamhaus.org), which covers the same filtering purpose and is fully active