Has your MSE forum email address been spammed.

MSE_Martin

This is very interesting to read. We of course NEVER sell our email data list or forum list. So I have no idea how this happened. Our software for the forum is Vbulletin which is off the peg and we have secure servers so I don't see how this could've happened but will ensure its looked into.

superscaper

MSE_Martin wrote: »

This is very interesting to read. We of course NEVER sell our email data list or forum list. So I have no idea how this happened. Our software for the forum is Vbulletin which is off the peg and we have secure servers so I don't see how this could've happened but will ensure its looked into.

I think it's probably all coincidence and there'll be nothing wrong but on the smallest chance there is something... they do tend to be things that you don't know or find out they're there unless you specifically look for it in the first place.

alanwsg

me too!
I use a unique address for all forums I subscribe to.
Just started getting spam from this one.
from sigma..blah..blah like tthe others.
source email michaeltaylor84@ymail.com

Nilrem

IIRC some virus types used to look at a users "contact list" and "received" email for addresses to spoof it's "from" field for.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if one of the current spam bots does something very similar - i've been getting spam emails purporting to be from people whose email addresses I know are secure.

I've also noticed in the past week or so my spam rate has gone up to about 150 a day (fortunately most are being caught either by my ISP's filters, the windows basic filters, or my manually set ones), which is a huge increase on what I was getting a a couple of weeks back (coming into about 6 of my active addresses).

omen666

Not been to spain recently have you?

moonrakerz

Nilrem wrote: »

IIRC some virus types used to look at a users "contact list" and "received" email for addresses to spoof it's "from" field for.

Maybe, but I don't have mse in my "contacts" nor do I receive e-mails from mse, my address was only used for registration purposes.

Jemma-T

My email junk has increased 1000% this week. It's all getting through the usual filters. No problem, sailed through oddly.

1000%? Yeah, 1 last week and 10 this week.

It's never easy to pinpoint the whys and hows this happens but if there's several people who're getting spam to their MSE only email then the problem is MSE. Saying the data is secure is meaningless really as we'd need to know just how secure. Not that I'm accusing MSE of poor security. Maybe the people who are getting this MSE-only spam can pass the details to MSE and they can check on the VB boards for problems elsewhere.

I don't know why I got the spam but the best thing we can do is mark it and report it as spam so ISPs and spam watchers can learn from it.

alanwsg

omen666 wrote: »

Not been to spain recently have you?

why is that relevant?

setmefree2

I haven't received any spam from sigma but if I do I'll let you know. In fact, come to think of it, I haven't seen any increase in the amount of spam received on the e mail address I use for MSE.

Former_MSE_Webmaster

Hi folks,

Thanks for the feedback so far. We've been investigating this issue over the last week or so and it would help to get more information from the users concerned, to try and narrow down the location of a potential breach.

Rather than posting information here, could you please send an e-mail to: spamreport @moneysavingexpert.com with the date and e-mail address that received the spam, your Forum username and if you wouldn't mind, your ESP and registrar of your domain if it's a personal one.

If you have any further information you believe may be of help to us, please include this as well, we welcome your input.

Any findings or useful information we gather wil be submitted to the various anti-spam agencies to further the fight against spam.


Webby