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Summary: Email spoofing is rampant. Spammers often send email that looks like it came from you. And there's little you can do about it. Someone's sending from my email address! How do I stop them?! You're minding your own business and one day you get email from someone you've never heard of and they're asking you to stop sending them email. Or worse, they're angry. Or worse yet, they accuse you of sending them a virus! But you don't know them, you've never heard of them, and you know you've never sent them email. Welcome to the world of viruses where you can get the blame for someone else's infection. And there's worse news to come. • Before I get to that, there is always a small possibility that your email account has been compromised. The solution there is simple: change your password immediately. That should prevent someone who's using your account for malicious purposes from continuing, assuming you've chosen a good password. But these days that's not the most common cause for the situation I've described, viruses are. And what's worse, there's almost nothing you can do. The MyDoom/Novarg virus currently running rampant is a great example. The virus infects someone's machine and then looks in the email address book on that machine and emails a copy of itself to everyone it finds. What it also does is forge the "From:" address for the email that it sends. What does it use to forge the address? Why, the addresses in the address book, of course. So the infected machine will send email to everyone in the address book, looking as if it was sent by other people in that address book even though it was not. Let's use a concrete example: Peter's machine gets infected with the MyDoom virus. In his address book are entries for friends Paul, and Mary. Paul and Mary have never met, have never exchanged email, and do not know each other - they each just know Peter. The virus on Peter's machine will send email with the virus to Paul looking like it came from Mary. Paul may wonder who the heck this Mary person is and why she's sending him a virus, but she was never involved. If you're in Mary's place, you can see that it would be frustrating to be accused of something that you had nothing to do with and have no control over. For the record, your email address may end up in the address books of people you don't know as well. Various email programs will automatically hold on to additional email addresses that were included on email you received or possibly from email that was forwarded. Viruses have also been known to use other sources of email addresses or even forward them around as the virus spreads. What that means is that the simple "friend of a friend" example I used with Peter, Paul and Mary, while simple and certainly possible is not the only way your email could show up as a forged "from" line. What's important here is simply this: one way or another email viruses lie about who sent them. If someone accuses you of sending a virus-laden email, and you are positive you did not, then you have very little recourse other than trying to educate them about how viruses work. Point them at this article if you like. But be clear: you're not necessarily infected nor is the person who received the mail claiming to be from you. It's some third party who is. (And identifying that third party is difficult - this is why virus writers use this technique.) And of course be sure that you're not going to get infected yourself: don't open attachments from people you don't know and make sure you have an up-to-date virus checker and virus definitions file. I have recommendations for virus scanning software here. Related:
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Hi. I hope this is not off topic. For the second time in 4 months - I have had a webhosting account suspended - they had some company in england that had a link from one of my sites and they say I'm running a phishing site. I don't send email and although I get at least 8 phishing deals everyday - I've never clicked on any of them. About 8 months ago someone said another of my sites was sending spam from an older article directory I had that wasn't being use and wasn't even on the pages to be found. How do we protect our websites from this kind of stuff and if this goes on - nobody will dare rent webspace anymore - and why do the webhosts buy all this time and shut sites down - just on the word of some stranger or organization. Thanks - the website in question is: http://the-idaho-trader.com I have mccafee latest, suite 8 and spyware doctor with anti-virus and super antispyware free edition Posted by: John Hansen at March 29, 2008 07:14 PMHello LEO Sorry on the previous post to and from fields appeared empty.Don't know why maybe ıt was reformatted in html.It should read like this: I have in the last few weeks been receibg numerous failure messages of emails that I have never sent which have been returned to sender only these were not sent by me in the first palce. these mostly are in Russian alphabet characters. We also had to remove a virus which got through our file wall and anti virus software. It looks like I will need to change my email address. Posted by: David Pearl at April 7, 2008 03:17 AMHi , Someone is using my email address to do spam mail last week . I have changed my password and today i still receive the same spam me again. When I did a replay it replied back to my email add. What should I do? Posted by: Jayce at May 3, 2008 05:29 AM-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- "What should I do?" - Probably read the article you just Thanks, Leo
iD8DBQFIHOkxCMEe9B/8oqERAhD8AJ9a78svmBpT+SR7+2PjEbjUtOci4gCeK4sl someone has hacked into my account and has gotten my personal informationlike my address, phone number, and name. I deleted the account. But, now i am recieving stuff in the mail and i am expected to pay for it. What am i supposed to do? Posted by: Allison Milller at May 4, 2008 01:19 PM-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Contact the authorities. Thanks, Leo
iD8DBQFIHkugCMEe9B/8oqERAgh0AJ9+MkMrcgDCHVY8BVpccHKnzImD8QCdFTU8 I have the same problem... I would not mind if my email was not in blacklist on some sites and when I send important email to someone and I dont know even that he didnt get it than it is bad. People are calling me... did you send it already and I say yes few times... But we never got your email. That sucks... Can I prevent this and also getting those undelivered mail messages? I am getting like 100 per day last days. Posted by: Radovan Pokorny at May 9, 2008 05:35 AMHi Leo My ex n I have a problem with his ex. She got his email password n read all our emails. He says he thinks maybe she got it from someone who offers to do this on the net???...I have read about this n I am aware that some pleople claim to be able to do this -but I dont know if it really can be done-. Any way if this is what she did, I am afraid she could also get my email password. Is this possible? how can I protect my self n my info?...btw, the days after she got his password, I received a postcard that I opened but not postcard at all! I am afraid it can be a virus :S can this be related (could she be trying to get my password or some other infor by a mean like this -she has no train or skills in IT-)? n even if it is not related, what can I do with this second issue of the false postcard? tks in advance Posted by: linda at May 9, 2008 11:17 PMPost a comment on "Someone's sending from my email address! How do I stop them?!":
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