Comments for Why am I getting spam from myself?

Comment from Tracy on 2009-11-16

2009-11-16T11:32:44Z

it is so frustrating to me as it has now happened twice via my hotmail address - spam being sent to me and all my adressees - some of my addressees have warned me and I have profusely apologised, but am afraid I will be blacklisted. How can I stop the spam from reaching those on my addressee list? I dont care about myself. It is just embarrassing - particularly to those I have subscribed to their newsletters....

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Comment from bluebellsofs on 2009-11-06

2009-11-06T08:23:33Z

I get tons of spam "from" myself, thankfully my email filters it out very effectively. My question is whether or not the spammers are able to send these spoof emails to OTHERS with MY email address in the "from" field. Are they able to spam others and make it look as if the spam was sent from my address?

Yep.

06-Nov-2009

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Comment from Blushin on 2009-10-13

2009-10-13T19:47:38Z

I think most of the problem occurs with the fact that when sending mail to ourselves the sender is labeled " me " If Gmail would allow us to change this ( and not just when sending to someone else ) then the spam wouldn't irritate us so much. If I sent a mail to myself and it said " blushin " on it, I'd know it was from me, when I recieve one that says from " me " I would block it. But Gmail makes it impossible to do this.

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Comment from Lou on 2009-08-10

2009-08-11T01:36:19Z

Is there a way of blocking e-mails that contain a keyword in the body of the e-mail? e.g. Viagra. I notice that most of these spams never mention the word in the header.

That depends entirely on the services your email provider includes, and what specific email program you use.

11-Aug-2009

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Comment from Alan on 2009-06-25

2009-06-25T13:58:41Z

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

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Comment from Spamhater on 2009-06-04

2009-06-04T07:51:26Z

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.

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Comment from Doug on 2009-05-26

2009-05-26T17:27:27Z

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.

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Comment from Ireene on 2009-05-07

2009-05-07T15:33:33Z

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

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Comment from Andrea on 2009-03-02

2009-03-02T11:24:28Z

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.

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Comment from Richard Barnes on 2009-02-03

2009-02-03T15:00:12Z

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.

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Comment from maria on 2009-01-13

2009-01-13T16:50:26Z

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

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Comment from Steph on 2009-01-11

2009-01-12T02:24:08Z

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!

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Comment from Phillip on 2009-01-09

2009-01-09T19:46:58Z

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

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Comment from Clare on 2008-12-30

2008-12-30T21:34:24Z

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.

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Comment from Chris Robertson on 2008-12-16

2008-12-16T20:32:39Z

Just a side note. Here are the top money makers;
*Pills (viagra, cialis etc)
*Gambeling
*Porn
*email address collection so they can send you the above.

Spammers love chain letters. They can get one email from one person, (from a hijacked computer) and it is lible to have 100 email addresses!!!
So from now on, repeat after me, "I will learn to use the BCC button". Why? It hides everyone's email address in the body of the email.
From this last chain email I got, I could make 100 dollars from selling YOUR email addresses.

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Comment from Chris Robertson on 2008-12-16

2008-12-16T20:28:52Z

There are some things you can do. There is a little program called Xxxxbully (xx out because we don't want to advertise for anyone) that will elimininate most spam, even those with your own name on it. This is if you don't "whitelist" yourself. (Not always desired though). Most email failures will come from your isp server, "service@youisp.com"
Now for users with Outlook or outlook express, you have a pop&smtp account. Contact your isp about secure SMTP server. This requires you to have a username and password to send email OUT. The account information you put in originally was only for RECEIVING your email. Anyone can send our your email server.
Now if your a yahoo or hotmail user, you just gotta lie there an take it. Many have a premium email feature that allows you to whitelist and create filters too.

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Comment from Rathi on 2008-12-09

2008-12-09T14:59:48Z

So, i get that there isnt anything that anyone can do about this, but let me get this straight, i'm sending a bunch of people mail from my address, right? can't i ask my mail provider to monitor my account activity or something? I'm a little more concerned that i'm sending a bunch of people dumb stuff.

No. You are not sending anything. Spammers are sending things from wherever they send things that look like you, but are not you.

- Leo
09-Dec-2008

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Comment from js on 2008-12-07

2008-12-07T18:04:59Z

How often you will send an email to yourself, I keep my sent emails in my sent folder for records, I never cc myself, so, why not just block the email sent from myself?

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Comment from Nelson on 2008-12-01

2008-12-01T17:09:05Z

Good article. I have a Gmail account and I think that they do a great job of preventing spam, but I also get annoyed by the e-mails from myself, that are really not from myself.

This is even doubly annoying, because sometimes I do send myself. Like sending myself an attachment at work, so that when I get home I can quickly download it. Gmail is simple to use because they give you up to 20MB for an attachment.

But Google also added a cool little feature that may be beneficial here. You can add a "+" and any verbiage after the "+" as a tag to your e-mail address. In other words, you can address an e-mail to a gmail user like this: user+thisisatag@gmail.com. How this can be used is to send e-mails to yourself by addressing it as self+fromself@gmail.com. When you register your id at a site, register the e-mail address of self+ebay@gmail.com. This address will appear in the "to" field and you can easily create a filter to grab these and labels to them. Anything sent to you that doesn't have a label will either be caught by your spam filter or end up in your inbox and easily spotted.

The other option would be your own domain and creating "forwarding" e-mail addresses that you would register in much the same way as i described above. In other words, ebay@mydomain.com or paypal@mydomain.com or any other site you subscribe to. This will help you to quickly separate the legit e-mails from the false one's. It's tedious but stops all the guessing. The key is switching all of your existing accounts.

Just my 2-cents.

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Comment from Dave on 2008-11-10

2008-11-10T12:46:14Z

Why not have a do not e-mail list much like the do not call list? Most of the opt out options in e-mails don't work,they just bring me to a blank page.I am wondering why more of us (people on the net) don't get together and push for something more to be done.I mean my ISP has already blocked my account once for spamming and I knew nothing about it until I tried to get online and was blocked.I had to call them just to get my internet back and was told if it happens again my account will be canceled.I mean all this has gotten way out of hand and no one even wants to try to do something about it!!!
Dave

Spammers would simply ignore a "do not email" list. And by clicking on "opt out" links in spam, you're likely getting MORE spam as a result.

- Leo
10-Nov-2008

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Comment from Bisser on 2008-09-08

2008-09-08T18:32:22Z

It is harmless until Yahoo cancels your email account for "SPAM Abuse" because somebody was spoofing your email address....which happened to me.

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Comment from catmoves on 2007-09-02

2007-09-02T19:30:06Z

You might suggest to J. Haring that he/she get a gmail address from Google. Google email has an automatic spam drop that works well. It also learns from the user's actions which additional email is classified as spam. Works great for me.

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Comment from Renato Morbach on 2007-08-31

2007-09-01T01:43:08Z

There's one way to redirect those messages to the SPAM folder, as long as you use Outlook 2007. Create a RULE to apply on messages arriving. The rule is messages from myname@myDomain and sent to myname@myDomain move to SPAM. You may choose to delete, instead of moving to SPAM, but I like to double check.

Atleast they are not within the valid messages anymore.

renato

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Comment from J.Haring on 2007-08-28

2007-08-28T21:11:02Z

Leo,
Thank you for responding to my question. I wish we could do something about this, but now I know that it isn't unusual or serious. Maybe one day hotmail will be able and willing to do something about this problem. J. Haring

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