You have been hacked - email

RumRat

Newcad said:

NEVER, NEVER reply, not even in jest.

All that does is confirm to them that the email address is still in active use - so it's worth more to scammers and they can sell it to others to send you more of that c***.

That would depend on which email address they actually have. I have three that I use for unknown sites and nothing coming in to them are of any importance. If it gets too much I'd just shut them down and open another one. Despite this the spam I get is minimal.

bob2302

Aidanmc said:

I've just received the following email.

I'm not concerned about the rubbish content in the email.

But has my email account been hacked or has my email address been spoofed.

The email was in junk folder, but the 'from' column displayed my email address.

Email is closely modelled on formal written letters. The To, From, and Cc headers are part of the email itself, analogous to the top of a formal letter - they can be set to anything.

One of the reasons why spammers like putting your own address as the from address is that many people put it in their address book, and some mail systems automatically whitelist such addresses unconditionally. 

HillStreetBlues

RumRat said:

Newcad said:

NEVER, NEVER reply, not even in jest.

All that does is confirm to them that the email address is still in active use - so it's worth more to scammers and they can sell it to others to send you more of that c***.

That would depend on which email address they actually have. I have three that I use for unknown sites and nothing coming in to them are of any importance. If it gets too much I'd just shut them down and open another one. Despite this the spam I get is minimal.

I'm surprised how good MS spam filters are. One of my MS accounts is junk@ and very rare any junk gets to inbox.