Ask Leo! by Leo A. Notenboom

Why am I getting spam from myself?

Search First! Then browse: Categories | Full Archive | By Date | Newsletter

Home » EMail » Spam

Comments

Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
RSS feed Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.

Comment Page:  1  |  2  |  3 

One day someone will invent a requirement that IP addresses are required to send email. That should take care of it - only being able to send emails from IP to IP.

Posted by: Clare at December 30, 2008 1:34 PM

One can set a "filter" in the Thunderbird email client to divert this kind of message into your junk folder.

Posted by: Phillip at January 9, 2009 11:46 AM

I have all my email accounts hooked up through gmail, and there is an aggressive spoof spammer sending messages to one of the accounts i have linked under my domain. If i click "report spam", will gmail think that my domain is a spam domain and block us? They are sending spam to me from my business, and i dont want to accidentally blacklist myself!

Posted by: Steph at January 11, 2009 6:24 PM

I understood from the article that the spoof emails are not actually from me... but I replied to one of them just to make sure, and the reply showed up instantly in my inbox. It seems that it really is me.

It is not you. The spoof makes it look like it came from you, and that also fakes out your mailer when you try to reply.
- Leo
14-Jan-2009

Posted by: maria at January 13, 2009 8:50 AM

Using Spamassasin there a few rules that deal with self signed or spoofed emails. We have put rules in place that people on a specific list can send emails (the white list). They can send mails to others on the domain, only if the mail originates from our Exchange server. The spamassasin rule blocks all email from outside from anybody on the white list. The fallout from this is that if someone wants to send email outside the domain to an email address in the domain they have to use the Exchange web client to send it for it must originate from inside the network.

My personal belief is that until there is a financial cost associated with email we will never get rid of SPAM. I would pay 1 or 2 cents an email. It would amount to a small amount for most of us. That one or two cents though would be hundreds of thousands of dollars for a spammer thus making the marketing ploy not cost effective.

Posted by: Richard Barnes at February 3, 2009 7:00 AM

I can't block my own email address, as on my website I have a booking form which sends to my email from my email (well that is what it looks like)...I know that booking forms will appear the way they do, but I still get other companies, ie drugs, insurance, etc cloning my email address to spam me.

Posted by: Andrea at March 2, 2009 3:24 AM

Would ithelp if I changed my email address? Or are the spammers working with other parameters over which I have no control?

Changing your email address may help for a short while, but the spam "from" yourself will return at your new address as well. I wouldn't bother.
- Leo
08-May-2009

Posted by: Ireene at May 7, 2009 8:33 AM

Here's my Thunderbird filter
Set to require 'all' lines
1. From - contains - my_real_email_address
2. To - contains - my_real_email_address
3. Subject - does not contain - test

Do this: mark as Junk

The third requirement allows me to send myself
a test message, if I think there is some problem
with the email service.

I don't automatically delete junk.

Posted by: Doug at May 26, 2009 10:27 AM

Well Firstly I have to disagree. I understand the spoofing, but in general, when you start getting spam from you own *account*@hostname.com the chances of a bug/hijack application is pretty high. That's something you can check out.

Posted by: Spamhater at June 4, 2009 12:51 AM

Is the fact that my email address is in the FROM box going to get me added to a SPAM Blacklist?

Best I can say is "maybe". There are SO MANY blacklists, and they all follow different rules. Hopefully most realize that the from address is a bad way to determine what is and is not spam, but still ... I'm sure some do.
- Leo
25-Jun-2009

Posted by: Alan at June 25, 2009 6:58 AM
Comment Page:  1  |  2  |  3 
Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
RSS feed Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.
Post a Comment

To post a comment on "Why am I getting spam from myself?", please return to that article's main page.

Question? Ask Leo!