topic Re: To worry about? in Operating System - Microsoft

To worry about?

Joe van Raamt — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:19:27 GMT

Lately I have been getting e mails with me as being the sender. I had one saved and scanned with Norton, but there was no content or virus in the e mail. Besides simply deleting these, should I do anything else? thus far I received about 2-3 every day for the last week or so.
Thank you for your time.

Re: To worry about?

Ivan Ferreira — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 12:33:18 GMT

It's easy to fake the sender address of a mail message, that means that anybody can send a mail message with your address. The message that you got could be sent by anyother person with a virus or trojan that has your address in his address book.

If you want to be sure, you can check the message source (the header) and identify where the message was originated (The IP address).

Re: To worry about?

Jay Bollyn — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:10:15 GMT

Joe,

If there was harmful content in the email or in an attached file, this may have been automatically deleted by whoever hosts your email account, for instance your ISP. For instance, on my network, we automatically delete email attachments with .exe as the filename extension.

There is nothing you need to do with the emails you mentioned receiving.

Make sure your anti-virus software is up to date.

- Jay

Re: To worry about?

Joe van Raamt — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:27:46 GMT

Hi Ivan, I tried to find the IP address , but there is nothing to click on (header?). see attached e mail. (scanned for virus)

Re: To worry about?

Arch_Muthiah — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:29:08 GMT

Joe,

I would suggest not to open those types of emails, because when you open those type of email, the sender will get succeed knowing your location.

Archunan

Re: To worry about?

Arch_Muthiah — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:41:51 GMT

Joe,

I am getting so many spam emails, nowdays I stopped opening those type of suspecious emails.
You would be having spam protector with your email s/w, what s/w are you using?. I think yahoo have a spam blocker option, using which we can block the source before opening that email.

If you really want to block these type of emails, there are so many free spam filter tools are available in the net.

You can try any one of these (small pay)PAMfighter and SpamAgent

These are powerful email monitoring and filtering tool that allows you to get the email you want - and nothing more. It has a comprehensive set of filters (over 1500!) that block spam and unwanted emails - before they reach your inbox.

Archunan

Re: To worry about?

Arch_Muthiah — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:44:20 GMT

Joe,

Also there are free download email bouncer, using which you can bounce the suspicious email back to the sender.

The Best and safe thing I would suggest is that not to open those emails.

Archunan

Re: To worry about?

Jay Bollyn — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:17:05 GMT

Joe,

Some other things I just thought of that can help protect you from harmful incoming emails. Perhaps your email reader software has an option to 'read email in plain text'. This is safer than reading email in HTML format, because HTML can contain hidden viruses, spyware, etc.

The single most important thing you can do to protect yourself on the Internet is to use Firefox http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ instead of Internet Explorer. IE uses ActiveX controls, which tend to be a security problem. Firefox does not use ActiveX.

Also, make sure you keep your Windows Updates up-to-date.

- Jay

Re: To worry about?

Joe van Raamt — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:53:04 GMT

Thanks to all,
I did only open the e mail after checking it with the virus scanner. I do have spam blockers etc, and I do delete the ones that I do not know the sender, but would like to know how to find the sender who is using my e mail address.
I will try the "bounce back" program suggested by Archunan Muthiah.

Re: To worry about?

Jay Bollyn — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 15:08:50 GMT

It is sometimes difficult or impossible to determine where a particular email came from. Techniques like 'redirection' can disquise both the sender's email address and the IP address used by the sender.

- Jay

Re: To worry about?

B. Boxma — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 04:23:16 GMT

If you are using Outlook, select the message with right mouse button en click options.
The header displays at the bottom of this screen.

Re: To worry about?

Joe van Raamt — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 08:09:36 GMT

none had a message or subject line in the e mail

Re: To worry about?

Rich S — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 09:17:37 GMT

Joe,

I get those all the time. If I try to reply, it has my email there.

Very common and not much you can do. Sometimes I get an email to myself with a link in it that does have a virus attached but most of the time it is nothing.

Rich

Re: To worry about?

Joe van Raamt — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 10:02:27 GMT

Thanks, that is what I have been doing (just deleting) but I was wondering about the sender using my e mail address to send malicious messages.

Re: To worry about?

Rich S — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:55:43 GMT

That only happens if you open a worm virus. Then it reads all your email addresses sending a copy of itself to all your friends saying it was from you.

Spammers can get your email address from just about anywhere. I sent a few emails to Taiwon and have been getting spam from there ever since.

You can forward your spam to the government.

see:

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/07/newspamemail.htm

or

http://www.ftc.gov/spam/

I have been forwarding my suspicious ones there (like phishing emails).

Rich