More Spam e-mails - how can I stop them???

Money_Grabber13579

This one is even stranger than the last one though. Apparently I have sent a spam e-mail to one of my lecturers at my university, however it is not in my sent folder. Instead it has appeared in my inbox. How'd this happen? It has affected 2 of my e-mail accounts.

The e-mail also seems to have sent itself to several other sources as I've received an e-mail from abuse reports on here, nero tech support etc all regarding "Christmas plan"

I'm running a full scan at the moment with Malwarebytes but so far hasn't picked up anything. Obviously it's a bit embarrassing that my lecturer is going to think I'm recommending some dodgy stuff to her!

Should also say I've wiped my system and done a clean install with Windows 7 in the last month, so it's probably unlikely a virus!

Money_Grabber13579

More info:

In the from box, it says my e-mail
In the to box, it says my lecturers e-mail

But it's in my inbox, not my sent box.

My sister received the same e-mail, and it says my lecturers name on it as well. Who's sending these? Me or the lecturer?

fwor

This varies a bit depending on which email client you have, but if the originator put your lecturer's add in the To: field, and any number of other addresses (including your sister's) in the Bcc: field you would see exactly what you are seeing.

Determining whether someone else is spoofing your email address as the sender is a bit harder to figure out, but doing a scan on your own PC is a good place to start.

Money_Grabber13579

I'm using Windows Live Mail for all my e-mail accounts. Any idea why the messages are appearing in my inbox though and not the sent box?

And why would it have taken over 2 e-mail addresses? The passwords for both are different.

Money_Grabber13579

Oh and another thing, none of these people are in my contacts list. So is it sending it to everybody I've ever got e-mails from?

davb

It is of course possible you have a nasty, but most likely you have been spoofed.

Imagine if one of your friends has a number of people in their address book, ie person A,B,C,D,E and for arguments sake you are C.
If you friend gets a virus it can scan their address book, and mail everyone a copy of a virus, spam, whatever. Now the tricky bit - it doesn't send them from your friend, but spoofs one of the other people in the address book to be the apparent sender, yes lucky you.
So A,B,C,D,E all get spam seeming to come from C, including C (so it will go into your inbox). Also, if say B is a company who has some antispam software, it may bounce the mail back to where it seemed to come from - C.
Unfortunately, if you have been spoofed, there isn't much you can do about it apart from explain to people if they ask.

You can usually tell from the headers of the email, but most people don't look.

Money_Grabber13579

Does that mean it might not have actually come from me? Or is that unlikely considering all the automated replies I've had so far are from companies I've actually dealt with in the past?

In order to spoof, do they need my password, or can it be done without that? And who then would have the virus? So far, it's still found nothing.

davb

Money_Grabber13579 wrote: »

Does that mean it might not have actually come from me? Or is that unlikely considering all the automated replies I've had so far are from companies I've actually dealt with in the past?

In order to spoof, do they need my password, or can it be done without that? And who then would have the virus? So far, it's still found nothing.

It is quite likely it didn't come from you, although it is advisable to run AV and Malware checks to be safe - but this type of thing is not uncommon.

Email is horrendously insecure and easily fooled. You can set up an email account in say Outlook Express, put in a genuine SMTP server (viruses use their own), and after that you can do pretty much anything - If I knew them, I could put your email address as the sender, and your name - and it would look genuine to most people.

Try and get the headers of one of these mails, and compare it to a genuine one from you.

Money_Grabber13579

What do you mean by the headers? At the top, it says my e-mail address, the same as any other e-mail I've sent. However, all other e-mails I've sent would be in my sent box, whereas this is in my inbox. And how did it manage to replicate to everyone else I've ever had e-mails from?

davb

What email client are you using? - Edit I see you are using Windows Live Mail
The email headers are usually found by looking at the properties of an email, and will have lots of geeky stuff in there such as:
To, from, return address, mail server names and IP addresses, spam status, x-Mailer lines, times, dates etc

This may help to explain the headers

Money_Grabber13579

Using WLM. I think I've found what you're after. The one on the spam e-mail is certainly a lot longer than the one's I ever send. Although what should I look for as an indication as to what's happened?