Cleverly disguised spam

wendym · 24 May 2007 at 12:13PM

I've been getting a lot of emails bounced back because of server problems. I have just opened what seemed to be another ' message delivery failure' email from 'postmaster', but which was spam. I didn't click on any links, and deleted it. Other than confirming my address (annoying enough) is running all my malware detection etc all I can/should do?

Thanks.

Moneymaker · 24 May 2007 at 8:46PM

Once you start to get spam, it's time to change your email address.

jmc160 · 24 May 2007 at 11:31PM

Once you've recognised which are spam & which aren't, just ignore & delete the spam whenever it comes in. If the email is not one you were expecting, don't even open it, just delete it.

It'll take some time, but you should find after a couple of months they start to come less frequently and eventually fizzle out. Just persevere & eventually it'll come right.

Unless of course, you've replied to any of them. Then you'll probably find the program that sent out the spoof email (an email that sends to random addresses in the hopes that it'll get one right eventually) now knows that your address is a real one. In which case I'd get a new email address.

I recommend Gmail (or Googlemail) from Google. It's free. The spam filter is really good, plus with nearly 3GB of storage, you never have to delete an email, just archive them and use Google's search engine to search for one should you ever need to.

ManAtHome · 25 May 2007 at 12:00AM

Was it actually addressed to you, or some random string at your domain address. Eg assume you are jsmith@boggit.co.uk and the email was to aksdgk@boggit.co.uk.

You can easily block these by adding a rule to delete anything not addressed to your real email address.

MisterNick · 25 May 2007 at 6:50AM

I am not sure if I have the same problem here.
Sorry if I am hijacking the thread and I will open another if you wish.

Over the last couple of days I have received lots of e-mails from Postmaster or maildemon telling me that e-mails I have never sent have been unable to be delivered.

I came down this morning to 145 of them,

I have not opened any or returned any, just delelted them.

Last night I ran Spybot and Norton.

Does anybody have any ideas please?
Changing my e-mail address sounds a real pain, not from the phyically opening a new one point of view, but notifying everybody.

alanrowell · 25 May 2007 at 7:12AM

I don't think the messages are spam - they are the RESULT of spam being sent to others under your email address & being rejected

Several possibilities

1) your computer is still infected - see the "spyware removal" sticky at the top of the forum.

2) a contact of yours has an infected computer & their address book with your email address is being used to generate spam

3) someone is spoofing your email address (perhaps your email address appeared on a public website?)

1) you can fix
2) can be fixed if you can trace the other person
3) get a new email address - or add some rules to reject these messages

melbury · 25 May 2007 at 10:03AM

I've had this going on for the past couple of months. Absolutely inundated with emails that were marked undeliverable, then it tailed right off and I thought the problem was over. However, a couple of weeks later it started up again, one day I had 1800 of them in my inbox and the following day 1200!!!

How can you get it so that only emails addressed to your exact email address will be allowed to come in? Any advice would be appreciated.

I did open a new email address, but still get some things coming in to the old one. Also the old one is with Outlook Express and I cannot find any way of changing it over to the new one. Have tried changing the default, but didn't make any difference.

wendym · 25 May 2007 at 7:13PM

I changed my email address radically a couple of months ago (I got a domain) and had a dozen genuine undeliverable emails when the host server got into trouble two weeks ago.

I ran all my scans, and so far have had just the one spam message.

I use Outlook, and can't see who it's addressed to until/unless I open it. Most spam is obvious, and I delete unopened everything from an unknown source.

I have only just got everyone using the new address - you're right that changing is a real pain, particularly if you use it for more than domestic stuff.

ManAtHome · 25 May 2007 at 7:17PM

melbury wrote: »

How can you get it so that only emails addressed to your exact email address will be allowed to come in? Any advice would be appreciated.

In Outlook Express, start with Tools/Message Rules/Mail..
Tick the top box - "Where the TO line contains people"
Click the "Contains people" underlined link in the bottom box
Type in your email address and hit enter (or click the Add button)
Click the "Options" button
Change the "Apply rule if" to "...does NOT contain.. (click in the empty circle)
Ok, Ok to get back to the main Rules window
Select your action in the middle box:

I'd recommend you start with moving messages to a folder (eg Spam), then check all the nasties are going in there. Once happy, go back into the rules and change it from "Move to a folder" to "Delete it from server" (this one's at the bottom of the list).

WARNING - if you mis-spell your email address, everything will be picked up as unwanted (why you should route it to a folder until you're sure). Also remember to add any other "friendly" email addresses - eg if you use fredb@ normally, and freddieb@ for friends you needd them both in the rule.

HTH.

[edit] as you have 2 adresses, put them both in to start - if you want to 'drop' the old one, just remove it from the rule (once you've told everyone about the change of course..).

[edit2] - spotted by Melbury that 2nd line should be TO not FROM, now changed - sorry for any confusion.

melbury · 27 May 2007 at 2:11PM

Thanks for all the advice, but isn't there a way I can just put in my exact email address and state that I only want emails let in that are addressed as such.

To try and explain a little on what is happening, my email address is sort of like this:

[EMAIL="mickeymouse@disneyland.freeserve.co.uk"]mickeymouse@disneyland.freeserve.co.uk[/EMAIL]

Now all of these spam emails have been addressed to the @disneyland.freeserve.co.uk part, but the mickeymouse bit is always something different, not in any way like my actual email address.

I just can't understand how they are getting in with only the information after the @ being correct!!!

Also, Outlook Express does not appear to want me to change my default email address. I have tried this but the emails still come in to the old address.

All very frustrating!!!!

superscaper · 27 May 2007 at 2:36PM

melbury wrote: »

[EMAIL="mickeymouse@disneyland.freeserve.co.uk"]mickeymouse@disneyland.freeserve.co.uk[/EMAIL]

Now all of these spam emails have been addressed to the @disneyland.freeserve.co.uk part, but the mickeymouse bit is always something different, not in any way like my actual email address.

Well two things really.
1. if you own the disneyland domain and therefore get everything sent to it you need to change the settings with your email/domain server to switch off the catch all.
2. if you don't own the domain and it is only being sent to your only address then it will be sent to your address, what you see in the "to" box is simply one of many ccs sent to all the other addresses but your address will definitely be on the list, or it would be impossible for you to get it. The solution is either decent spam filter (I haven't really found a good enough one yet) or change your address.

Cleverly disguised spam

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