Help! My email addy used for spam!

inmypocketnottheirs

Hi!

Not sure what I can do here, but my business email (name@mydomain.co.uk) has been used for sending spam !!!!!!.

How I know is I have had a lot of returned email, which fortunately does not end up in my email in box, 'cos I use an anti spam service which blocks anything unrecognised.

Is there any way I can stop this although I guess all the spammers have done is enter my email address in the send field so that the mail looks like it has come from me? It does not appear that my server has been hacked as there does not seem to be any unusual amount of usage on my account.

Any help/advice or suggestions gladly received.

Many thanks!:beer:

C_Ronaldo

Do you not have filters you could alter to filter out the spam, or you get a new email address

fwor

Unfortunately there is very little that you can do about it.

The spammers use your email address because it appears "innocent" to spam filters, and so increases the chance that their spam will get through.

If they use it a lot, they may get your domain noticed by "spam blacklisters" like Spamhaus. This a mixed blessing, in that the spammers will stop using it, but it may also mean that email genuinely from you will be blocked/rejected by some ISPs.

inmypocketnottheirs

fwor wrote: »

Unfortunately there is very little that you can do about it.

The spammers use your email address because it appears "innocent" to spam filters, and so increases the chance that their spam will get through.

If they use it a lot, they may get your domain noticed by "spam blacklisters" like Spamhaus. This a mixed blessing, in that the spammers will stop using it, but it may also mean that email genuinely from you will be blocked/rejected by some ISPs.

Gets on yer threpenny bits doesn't it! I have several years of 'goodwill' with my email address, especially with it being my name at my company domain.

'Spose there is nothing I can do really :-( just another innocent victim of cyber terrorists I guess!

ryandj

I have received spam email from my own email address before, and the returned mail as well. It is annoying as you cannot really block mail from yourself!

inmypocketnottheirs

Have queried this with my domain hosting company who inform me it is a joe job attack (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job) and it is very common.

Still annoying though!

fwor

Interesting - I'd never heard the term before.

So a competitor or enemy has decided to try to harm your reputation. That really is annoying.

If only the service providers would shut down all "open relays" which don't require authentication then it could be eliminated - but that isn't likely to happen soon...

OK_Sauce

This happened to me too. I suggest, if you have your email set up to have a 'catchall' address i.e. anything@yourname.com, get your email/domain provider to change it to specific addresses only. By changing mine to info@mydomain and sales@mydomain the spam returns disappeared.

inmypocketnottheirs

OK_Sauce wrote: »

This happened to me too. I suggest, if you have your email set up to have a 'catchall' address i.e. anything@yourname.com, get your email/domain provider to change it to specific addresses only. By changing mine to info@mydomain and sales@mydomain the spam returns disappeared.

Unfortunately the spammers have myname@domain.co.uk thus all spam is being sent with my own name in front of the domain! I can see I am going to lose my email address over this.:mad:

The only good thing is as I have said because I am using a spam filter the returns are not hitting my inbox, but as my domain host says it could result in my address being blocked by spam filters so that even genuine mail does not get through.

Jess1986

In actual fact your email is probably not being used. Rather, they are just putting your email address as the reply address.

Moneymaker

Automated spam bots will make up "likely" email addresses by tagging real names (such as "joe") and commonly used words (such as "info", "sales") to a domain name (such as "@myweb.com").

So it's a big mistake to use your name or one of those words. Better to use your full name if unusual (but not obvious ones like joesmith or joe-smith).

But it's wise not to divulge your email address at all in public. Use a web site email form for strangers and have a "throw-away" address for friends to use. Never ever print an email address on your business card or letterhead. Print the URL of your web site email form instead.