Spam emails from myself?

Spork

tmm_aka_tracy wrote: »

Hi Everyone....

In a small way, I'm glad that you are also having the same problem as me, although deep down, Its very worrying for us all, and so very very annoying.

I use a works laptop, and my email is a works email, only accessable when I'm networked or using a VPN. This weekend alone I've had around 30 emails from me, with stupid titles such as; somebody has sent us your picture, Michelle Obama in the Nude..... blah blah. They all contain adverts for vigra etc.

We have enforced security patches from work, and the laptop will not accept any downloads from the internet for virus checkers etc. I've been on to our IT guys but they dont seem to have stopped it happening (in fact it has got worse).

The strangest thing of all is that if you reply to the email (I tried it once), the reply comes back to me...... I have an option to block the email address, but there are times when I need to forward emails or copy myself in (so that it is available on the blackberry).

I also have not signed up to MSN as it is blocked by the works software settings.

Please can somebody help?????

thanks

Tracy

Spam is horrible stuff - and the worst thing is once your email address gets on to a spammer's list, spam will only increase, as the lists get propagated round the net. You'll get spam sent to you, and spam apparently 'from' you. This is because spammers generally don't want you to reply to any of their emails - they want you to click a link in the email or download a virus - so they don't care whose address they use. I get maybe 600-700 spam emails a day, 95% of which are picked up by Outlook's spam filter and the rest get picked up by an Outlook plugin I have called Spambayes (http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/). Your employers should at least invest in a spam blocker, as it'll reduce the chance of viruses getting spread and will save their employees having to filter everything.

Spam is (unfortunately) a hazard that goes with the territory. If you don't recognise it or it looks dodgy, just delete it.

SJames_3

It's called Spoofing. Google can explain much better than I can.

Mullhon2

I was just about to post this question and am so pleased (sorry prob not best choice of word!), that I am not the only one getting these. I immediately panicked and run antivirus again!