Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Among the spam we all get are messages that we appear to have sent ourselves. From-spoofing is just a way spammers try to get their email delivered.
I get email from:
someone@somedomain.com <myemail@hotmail.com>
where "someone@somedomain.com" is someone I don't know, but "myemail@hotmail.com" is, in fact, my email address. It as if the email was sent by me, but I did not send it.
How do I stop these email from coming into my box? It's usually for drugs or financial services that I don't need or would never be interested in. How can they use my own email? I can't block them as it says it is illegal to block my own email.
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I'll start with the bad news: there's almost nothing you can do.
This is spam, pure and simple. Abusing your email address is only one of many techniques spammers use to throw their garbage into our mail boxes.
The remedies are pretty standard, albeit less than 100% effective.
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What you're seeing is called "spoofing" or more correctly "From-spoofing" - sending email that appears as if it's coming "From:" someone that its not.
Spoofing is a technique that is used in just about every bit of spam you see today. Spammers are trying to hide where the email comes from and are doing so very effectively. The From: address is meaningless on spam - it tells you absolutely nothing. It requires more detailed analysis of the email headers, and even then at best you might be able to get the IP address of the computer sending the email. As I've discussed ad nauseam, the IP address is pretty much useless to you and me.
The fact that you're seeing your email address used in the "From:" field shouldn't alarm you. It might be annoying, but there's no need to worry about it. You're already on spammers lists to get spam and they're using that same list, or variations of it, to select which addresses to use when spoofing. And there's currently no effective way to stop them from spoofing.
When you see your own address spoofed in the From: field of spam, it's happening for one of two reasons:
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They're trying to spam you, and know that it's unlikely you'll block email from yourself. In fact, as you've seen, it's not even always possible, but I'd consider it a bad idea even if you could do it. It'll prevent certain types of legitimate email from reaching you.
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They're trying to spam someone else, and what you're seeing is a bounce message indicating that the original spam was rejected by its intended recipient. Since the email looks like it came "From:" you, you get the bounce message.
Now, as to why the "someone@somedomain.com <myemail@hotmail.com>" where the two email addresses don't match, or the more common "Name <myemail@hotmail.com>" where the name is obviously unrelated to the email address, I can only speculate. My guess is that it's either intentional confusion to perhaps boost the chance that recipients will open the email, or a side effect of the tools that spammers use that may not be able to put together a proper name/email address pair.
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"But what do I do?"
First, realize there's nothing you can do to prevent From-spoofing. Eventually your email address is going to show up in the "From:" field of spam that you had nothing to do with. In fact as you've seen, it probably already has.
The only thing you can do is to keep doing whatever it is you do to control spam. I run two levels of spam filters, and even then some gets through. It's a juggling act because I don't want to risk marking something as spam that isn't - hence a little more spam gets through. Depending on your mail program and your mail provider, you may have similar or additional options available.
Article C3131 - August 27, 2007
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
Alright. Email looks to have been sent from me, to me and everyone in my address book, including my work email. That is, the address in the from is my personal address, and in the "to" is all my address book contacts, and my work email.
Checked the sent folder to see if it was there, and it was not.
Checked my work email, and my work email did not have the email from my personal email address.
Spoof or Hack? I've changed my password and personal credentials (the people who use this address already know who I am, so no real need for a "profile") just in case, but I'm curious.
Furthermore, it had no subject line, and their was a link in the body of the email. The link went to a numeric IP address.
Your help would be greatly appreciated in understanding what is likely going on here.
Thanks,
Charlie
However,
My work email never got any email
Posted by: Charles at June 11, 2011 1:44 PM@Charles
Posted by: Mark J at June 11, 2011 2:08 PMIf people in your address book or contact list are getting spam that appears to be from you it's very likely that your email account has been hacked or otherwise compromised.
You'll find more in this article:
http://ask-leo.com/someones_sending_email_that_looks_like_its_from_me_to_my_contacts_what_can_i_do.html
That's the wierd thing. The names in the To: did not get any email. As an example, my work email address was in the To: but did not recieve the email.
Posted by: Charles at June 11, 2011 2:23 PMThe simplest way to stop spams is delete completely your emails after backing up important emails and contacts. It's not worth to keep the email address if it is affected.
Posted by: Escherichia coli at July 20, 2011 3:14 AMI setup a message rule to delete messages which come from me, AND which contain certain words in the subject line.
Posted by: Barb at July 21, 2011 6:06 AM