Validate a sender before forwarding email.

Is there a way to do this?

[ChrisCBA]

I’ve created an email forwarder using my hosting control panel. The email address forwards email sent to it to a small group of recipients (under 30). Problem is email harvesting bots somehow got a hold of this email address, so now my group is getting spammed.

Is there a way to do a simple validation (a whitelist check) on the email sender before it gets forwarded to the whole group? That way if the sender isn’t in the whitelist the email won’t go through?

Like I said earlier I set this forwarder up via the control panel of the hosting account. The server is running apache. I don’t want anything complicated (such as a mailing list), just the ability for any one in the group to email a single address and that email will be forwarded onto everyone within that group.

Thanks for your help