Solved Spamming myself

[urbanspaceman1]

In the last week I have received two spam emails from my own email address (I sent a test email to it and it came back to me). I have seen posts of this happening to others but no satisfactory answers. Anyone got any suggestions where I went wrong or where I am going wrong?

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Most likely, someone hacked into your email account. Try changing your password.

 

[urbanspaceman1]

Hi Lady Fitz' OK I've changed my password, thank-you, let's see if that works; it seems as simple as me so - fingers crossed.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I've had my Yahoo email account hacked a couple of times over the years and, so far, changing my password has stopped the spammers who haceked the account dead in their tracks (not as dead as would like to make them, though ). If, for some reason, your problem continues, notify your ISP or whoever it is you get your email from.

 

[Callender]

Well another thing to check:

Enable https login for your email if it isn't already enabled. Also if you've got more than one email account add your second email address to your contact list in the problem email account and see it you receive any unexpected emails from yourself.

Check social networks that you've subscribed to and revoke permissions for any apps that you gramted access to your email contact list - especially if you no longer use them.

MyPermissions.org - Scan your permissions... Find out who gained access to your personal info.

 

[LMiller7]

Changing of on line passwords should be done on another computer whose security has not been compromised.

You can receive email that appears to be from your own address without being hacked or your computer infected. It is quite easy for a spammer to change the originating address to anything they wish and this is almost universal with SPAM. A popular trick with spammers is to use your own address as the return or originating address. This often allows the message to evade SPAM filters.

Never use the reply link that is in some SPAM messages. This just confirms to the spammer that your email address is valid and in active use, thus making it more valuable to them and other spammers.

 

[urbanspaceman1]

I recently reactivated my Facebook account which has been dormant for many years; I've subsequently deactivated it now the social issue I was following has ended. I have noticed the 'login' box coming up when my email has been inactive for a period: this is not a normal occurrence but I put it down to changes Virgin are making to their Webmail system (I access all my email through Microsoft's Outlook program in my Office package) until now, when it begins to look suspicious.

 

[urbanspaceman1]

Ref. Callender: I have no idea what https login means; I ran it through Google and didn't find any sensible answers. Help.
Ref. LMiller7: I take your point about changing passwords on an alternative computer.

 

[Callender]

https login:

It depends upon your email provider or email client.

See:

Webmail example

How to enable Yahoo Mail's (soon to be default) SSL encryption today | PCWorld

General guide for configuring email clients (select the appropriate client) and ignore Kerberos settings

https://itservices.stanford.edu/service/emailcalendar/email/config

 

[urbanspaceman1]

Hi Callender. I found the appropriate page and discovered that my email is in-fact encrypted.
I've changed my password, as indicated, but I received another identical spam message today; I have to assume that someone is using my address but I've not had any word from folk in my contacts list so I'm assuming that it's just targeted at me.
I'll send out a mailshot to everyone asking to advise me if they receive spam from my address but it looks like that is not happening.
Let's see what the future holds.

 

[Callender]

It might just be one of your friends contact lists that's been compromised. If you check your sent folder and don't see anything you can view the header for the spam email and find out where it came from or at least the location of the server.

 

[urbanspaceman1]

Checked my 'Sent' folder and found nothing. I have the properties of the three emails but none of it means anything to me. I've copied them into Word and attached them just in case someone experienced feels inclined to decipher them for me.

 

[ThrashZone]

Try a .txt attachment using notepad.

 

[urbanspaceman1]

I'm sorry, I don't understand the relevance of a Notepad document; is the docx not accessible?

 

[Callender]

Okay - so the sender's ip address (launching server) is in Israel so it's not from your machine and you haven't been hacked (no malware sending out emails from your machine)

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You can try reporting abuse to:

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Looks like it's probably sent from a machine that's been compromised and is part of a botnet. If there's nothing in your sent messages folder it just looks like your email has been spoofed and someone's contact list (not necessarily yours) has been compromised.

All you can really do is warn your contacts, report the problem to the hoster and hope that the botnet gets taken down.

Have a read through this:

Spam from your friends: spoofed and hacked e-mail

 

[Callender]

Most likely scenario:

Somebody Else Got Hacked

You might want to remove that attachment that you posted!

 

[urbanspaceman1]

Thank-you, yet again, Callender, I really appreciate your help.