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.
June 11, 2011 2:23 PM
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.
July 20, 2011 3:14 AM
The 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.
July 21, 2011 6:06 AM
I setup a message rule to delete messages which come from me, AND which contain certain words in the subject line.
April 2, 2012 8:52 AM
Shouldn't it be possible, when they are selling something, to contact the distributor/actual seller of the product and tell them people are getting annoyed by way of their product is being marketed?
August 30, 2012 2:32 PM
Hey Leo..
I discovered a new scam.... On facebook... I created a 2nd account one day and decided to try to locate friends. The mini app requests my email account title and PW and like a dummy I do so. Within seconds the app is perusing my address book and I can't stop the routine quick enough. Overnight I get hate/angry emails from some of my contacts asking "WTF" Then lately I am receiving emails from myself using the unique "pseudonym" I used to create that 2nd FB account. So my conclusion is that it sourced from the creator of the FB app...(is it Zuckerberg? That little Turd!!)
I knew FB sucked pretty bad this confirms that FB is a waste of electricity.
Anyways I use AOL as my actual main email account and the email controls there allow me to AUTODELETE any spams I set up in the powerful word/phrase list as well as sender list... both lists allow "wild cards" and I can even reject emails from myself. I confirmed that by attempting to send myself an simple safe generic email and indeed I received the MailerDeamon rejected letter notice.....
Spammers hate me