O/T but driving me around the bend

Anonymous-0 · Jul 29, 2009

I get emails 30% of which are received from a sender who uses my user name (as the SENDERS name).indicating I sent the email to myself, The providor of the email service has advised to install a malwarebytes program ,suggesting the unknown sender has gained access to my PC , Is it possible for a sender to transpose his email address and substitute my email address , or should I install and run the malwarebytes program to fix the problem . Any and all replies appreciated.

rhouston · Jul 29, 2009

Malwarebytes is a good program and it is free (you can and should donate if you find it usefull). It may or may not cure your problem. Lots of spammers use other peoples email addresses as the senders address it does two things. Hides their actual email address and guarnatees that someone will get the spam even if the original recipients server rejects the email. Your ISP does not have a very good email filter

rhouston · Jul 29, 2009

Spammers tend to use open relay mail servers that will send out an email without checking to see if the sender is authorized to use the email server or it the email actualy came from the senders mail server.

Anonymous-0 · Jul 29, 2009

Thanks rhouston , actually my ISP does filter the incoming emails which can be read before actually being received ,on the ISP website, they are then deleted my me at my option , You are right that they don't check the emails came from the senders mail server, I thought they would have caught that problem and rejected these emails ,but on enquiry they advised to install malware program ,
seems like they are not doing their job.

tlak · Jul 29, 2009

Hit reply and with out sending and see if the return address is actually the same.
If your mailbox has "show full header' hit that and read through to see if there's some other send address.
What you'll probably find is some yahoo, hotmail, etc.. address, which actually sent that to you.
If it was say Yahoo, copy the full header, hit reply, erase the return address and put in [email protected], paste the full header at the top of the body of the message and send.

Nancy Howell · Jul 29, 2009

Follow the instructions below to see if you can determine the actual email address of the sender. While it may "appear" that you are the sender, there are ways these scammers can mask (at least on the surface) the origin of the email.

Then find your filter settings for your email, its generally under options. You can then block this senders true email address and perhaps the entire domain address.

tjdub · Jul 29, 2009

It is NOT likely that this is caused by malware on your PC. It is common spammer practice to forge the From: address to make the message more likely to be viewed.

There is a solution though, but it's nothing you can do yourself. Contact the person who runs your email server (probably your internet provider) and ask them to set up SPF records for your domain name. Basically, it's just them publishing a list of every computer that is allowed to send out email for your domain name. Not only will it stop you from receiving spam from yourself, it will prevent other people on the internet from getting spam that says it's From: you.

Pass along these URLs:

http://www.openspf.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework

Old Roy · Jul 29, 2009

A stupid thing I did awhile ago, I went into deleted files to get an email to forward to the other party, couple minutes later It came back.

Sender was me [I had the wrong email to forward.]

Guess my blond is showing a little tonight.~~LOL

O/T but driving me around the bend

Anonymous-0

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rhouston

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rhouston

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Anonymous-0

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tlak

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Nancy Howell

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tjdub

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Old Roy

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