Community Newsletter: Q&A: Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?!
- 10/2/08 4:45 PM
Ted -- Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?!
by techtype - 9/27/08 6:10 PM In reply to: Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Ted, may I call you Ted? Now that we have that settled, we can go about trying to get you an answer to your dilemma.
First off have you ever went to any site that may have been dubious? You said that you have had this happen one other time. I do not mean PRONO sites, you already established that. I mean more like games, gaming sites or productivity downloads. See when you go to some of these sites even if you do not download the software, the very
fact that went there the owner of the site may have very well downloaded and executed melware/Bot that examined your address book on whatever email client you use. What the bot does is send your addresses, including your address.
Question I have is:
1. Does your security software look at the search engine and based on the security software's database tell you which sites are safe bets to go to (Grisoft AVG Free: http://www.download.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html)?
2. do you scan periodically for melware/bots? Most commercial security software does not (Spybot - Search and destroy: http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10122137.html, Lavasoft: http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-2008/3000-8022_4-10045910.html)?
3. Have you tested for open ports (the computer version of electronic gates that allow information to pass in and out the computer, you should go to Gibson Research Corporation (http://www.grc.com/default.htm) and pick SHEILDS UP!
4. You have a firewall already. For those that do not they should get one as quickly as possible (ZoneAlarm: http://www.download.com/ZoneAlarm-Firewall-Windows-2000-XP-/3000-10435_4-10039884.html).
A little bit about security software. Companies that tell you that they are the begin all, end all are lying. It is about like a vehicle sales person telling you that compact is as good as a heavy duty truck. Think about it, a compact is not going to do any good for towing another vehicle out a hole. Same with security software.
The reason I personally use Grisoft AVG is the reason stated above it has a database of bad sites and when you use the search sites it will tell you how many sites are bad and mark them in red, the others are marked in green and are all right to go to.
When I go to software sites I generally put my faith in CNet and ZDNet downloads. They test the software for bots, worms and virus'. There are other tested sites as well. If you pay heed to what all of this security as mentioned above, you should be all right. When you go to Game sites stick with the well known ones, as they Stake their reputation by not downloading melware.
All of the above security software are the single user only and are free to use for home use only and free.
Receiving emails from your own mail address
by WantU2Know - 9/28/08 8:44 AM In reply to: Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi
This happened to me too and I had the same reaction but there is nothing I know to do about it -
My explanation is that when friends and family or anyone else forward mail they hardly ever delete the long list(s) of previous senders therefore all these addresses(and yours in the process! ;-( )are forwarded too.... for anyone to grab and possibly use -
I have no solution and have not found any answers anywhere I've cared to look, BUT I DO WISH there was a way to SEND BACK ALL JUNK MAIL to their senders at a click of a button rather than just stick them in the Junk Box -
Try forums such as PCworld.com or computeractive.co.uk they might have an answer if you're patient enough to sift through the threads or put your question to them... someone might answer -
I must admit that I find forums sometimes useful but awfully time consuming, and HATE blogs with a vengeance !
Good luck !
Using your e-mail
by WAArnold - 9/28/08 2:21 PM In reply to: Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
To accurately answer your question would probably be 'there isn't really much you can do other than to change your address on a regular basis'. However, that will not stop the purps either. What happens is, they pick you address, spoof it for a few messages and then move on to someone elses' address. They do this to keep from being caught. The longer they used the spoofed address the better the chance of being caught. So, they change on a regular basis. I would go a little further and say that the purps are probably users of the same server you are on.
I am confused by this also.
by ikamm1 - 9/28/08 2:37 PM In reply to: Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Last week I also received a 'spam' e-mail with my return address. I e-mailed my ISP and am still waiting for an answer.
Simple enough
by Big Dummy2 - 9/28/08 3:04 PM In reply to: Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
If I were to spam the world using the address of the person the email is being sent to, I'd do something like this; put a Linux based sniffer on the line, and point it at a known email server. Something like hotmail, yahoo, or aol. Gather up a bunch of addresses, then send out the spam after "customizing" the headers so it looks like the person is talking to themselves. There are other ways, but why make your life difficult?
To guard against this, why not set the spam filter to put any email from yourself into the bit bucket?
spam from me
by ida45 - 9/29/08 12:06 AM In reply to: Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
hi this happenned to me ,icontacted isp, with covering e mail and forwarded e mail with all links headers and tracks for them to deal with and trace offender, it has not happened since.
Be carefull where you click!!
by ClissaT - 9/29/08 5:38 AM In reply to: Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Ted, I know exactly how you feel as I have been fending off the same putrid spam for 18mths. Only in the last month have I finally got control of it.
Mine came from one day when I was ill & haphazadly clicking around the net & clicked on an astrology site & filled in my details to get a daily forcast. Another place I left my details was a recipe site. When I leave details in these sorts of sites I always use a pseudonym, however I had to use my real email address which is what they wanted. So I knew where it came from when it started arriving as it was addressed to so&so. But by then my details had been sold to probably 100's of mailing lists.
A 'real' active email address is worth money apparently. Getting us to leave it for them to sell is the challenge. Which is why there are all sorts of sites from 'free' stuff, finding old school mate, to selling your car, & surveys around the web. They just only want your personal email address.
I have had to be very diligent with the email spam filter provided by my server, whereby I had to highlight all the spam in the spambox (about 200 daily)& call it spam again. That caused the filter to recognise it the next time that address was used to send mail to me.
However the crunch came when it was my address it was emminating from & of course I couldn't call that spam!! I have just kept all those emails unopened in a separate file on my server. There is a program or site somewhere where I can send it to apparently to have it wiped out properly without damage to my email address.
Along the way my personal email address apparently spammed my work server which black listed it causing all sorts of problems.
So I know what causes the problem & as a result I have unsubscribed to just about everything out there. One site in particular actually starts the spam all over again when I try to unsubscribe so I have stopped trying to unsubscribe to them. I still have to manually put that stuff, which comes through daily, into the spam file as it is so good it fools all filters.
But I am still waiting to find out the place where I send the spam mail to have it annulled. I'm hoping someone here will know that site. I tried 'Hijack This' but it turned out badly.
As for the 'how' of the mechanics of using your email address to send mail to you & everyone else. That was explained to me by my server operator but was too high tech for me to remember. It had to do with piggy-backing & I remember there were plenty of times when my internet seemed to be running very slowly & I would get locked out of sites that were secure. It opened my eyes to all that free stuff getting around out there.
All I can say is STAY AWAY from all those types of sites. Don't give your details to any site that you aren't completely sure of. Then again you will still get caught by address harvesters that dredge places like yahoo for jokes with heaps of old email adresses at the tops of them. That all stems from not cleaning up the joke before forwarding & not using the Bcc button which hides all the addresses you are sending a joke to. Many jokes & video's start at places that are capable of tracking them as they go through 100's of personal inboxes, then forwarded without being cleaned up. Well that's what I've been told anyway & as a result I ALWAYS clean everything I pass on.
So I haven't got the full answer Ted, but perhaps I have given you a clue to how to minimalize your spam. Lets hope the website that annuls this horrible stuff I have stashed away materializes here under your question!!
Frequent Spam emails
by bknyame - 9/29/08 6:26 AM In reply to: Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Spam emails every 15 mins come, at my address bknyame@homechoice.co.uk.
I want them stopped as they clog up memory on this computer, if I do not regularly delete them.
My internet provider, TISACALLI, cannot delete the emails nor the email address, WHEN REQUESTED.
Please, advice me on how to be free from the spam.
McAfee's advice did not stop the spam. The spam are usually about medicines/viagra tablets on the web from Canadian Pharmacy.
Several attempts to write to them to stop spam have failed and they continue to send spam for over a year, now.
Yours sincerely
BK Nyame
RE: Frequent Spam emails
by techtype - 9/29/08 10:14 AM In reply to: Frequent Spam emails by bknyamePlease do not respond to spam email, it only serves to encourage the spammer because when you respond they know they have a live usable address.
Try using AVG by Grisoft (AVG Free, I have it listed on some where on this forum, it comes with an email scanner and a site advisor (when you use a search engine it will tell you which are okay, which are not)).
You also might try Juno or Yahoo! email. These two email companies have facilities to filter spam from unwanted email and legitimate email, based on telling the email providers which is legitimate email (not marked as spam) they do a pretty good job too.
NOW you're going to get spammed HARDER!!! Why?
by btljooz - 9/29/08 11:35 AM In reply to: Frequent Spam emails by bknyameBecause you just posted your e-mail address for all the world to see... including spiders working for spammers to harvest e-mail addresses that are posted to web pages like this one. <HINT! 
Elementary, my dear Watson...
by Impreza WRX - 9/29/08 10:53 AM In reply to: Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Spammers these days have most interesting ways to get spam past the filter. One of those ways is to use the To: address as the From: address. While this should not be technically possible, a "hacked" email can do this. It makes for very convincing Important! messages from your [insert online anything with money here] that say you have to click here and login for some odd reason. NEVER CLICK HERE TO LOGIN FROM AN EMAIL! NO EXCEPTIONS!
Anyways, while it may not actually be from your PC, it is prudent to do some weekly scanning and removing of evilware. Spybot: S&D, Combofix.exe, SUPERAntiSpyware, Lavasoft Ad-Aware, your Antivirus. Do it all, and do it in Safe mode. Details are in the Forums.
Fear not, sender addresses are all on the honor system.
by Taesong - 9/29/08 4:21 PM In reply to: Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Good news and bad news. The good news is almost certainly no one else in the world is getting this email with your address on it. This spammer almost certainly just defaults the "from" line to be the same as the "to" line.
Just like with normal mail, with unregistered email the sender has the option of putting any "return address" (from) he or she likes. Do you remember setting up your email client and it asking you who you are and your return address? You could fake a different return address also if you wanted to this way. Of course the spammer is using some automated program to do this.
There is nothing you can do, but there is something being done. In the future all email may be registered with security tokens. This will verify if the sender is really who they say they are.
Only sending it back to me???
by ClissaT - 9/29/08 10:55 PM In reply to: Fear not, sender addresses are all on the honor system. by TaesongI'd like to believe you Taesong, however when I got my address poked back at me it came in many forms. It was turned inside out, upside down, parts added to other email addresses, my name included, split & recombined in so many forms I can't remember them all. I have a unique name & email address & it was easy to see what they were up to. You can't tell me they did all that just to send me a stupid spam!!?
They would put that new address at the top of their mailout list & click send & it would go to the 1000's of other suckered folks' addresses. I have a secure file in which I have kept most of those spam mails (unopened) with all the combo's of my name/address/email address until I find this supposed program that clears the trail.
I would like to find out how to safely unsubscribe as I still have one place that sends me spam & everytime I try to unsubscribe, it reactivates my email address & their spam starts all over again. I'm sure this company is in breach of this country's laws & regulations but not sure who to notify about it.
It's not REALLY from you.
by skiltech - 9/30/08 7:09 AM In reply to: Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This is one of many common spammer tricks. Most likely you're the only person who received an e-mail that said it was coming from you. Everyone else who received the same one thought it came from them.
It's simply to forge the return address of an e-mail (anybody could do it in their mail client) but spammers have taken it to a new level. One other common tactic they'll use is to randomly insert another address from their mailing list making it appear to be the sender.
Spam APPEARING to come from own email account
by td1947 - 10/1/08 9:02 AM In reply to: Spam e-mail received, but it’s coming from me?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This is a very common trick. Nothing to worry about - they are not REALLY using your email address - many spamming tools now mess with theaders to make it APPEAR as though it is from you. Sometimes, you can see the REAL source by doing a RIGHT-CLICK on the highlighted email before you open it (in OUTLOOK anyway) and look at the RECEIVED header above the FROM header (should have their IP address in it). It will be the FROM header that has been messed with. TD
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