Unauthorized use of my contact list
incognitouser
postmaster messages about undeliverable and delayed mail to people I don't
even know.It looks to be from a hotmail account. If I report these what
would happen if a real one that I did send had problems Would I get a report
of this or would every message form postmaster be blocked? I noticed that in
the spam there was a diffrent addy to reply to. I never use a diffrent reply
addy, It wet to an address that has not been used in years. The only reason
the account is still open is for testing.
I did delete the contact in the account. Is there a way to lock down and
protect my contact list? Should I send the postmaster reports of the spam
as spam. I have it setup to be reported.
N. Miller
If you suspect your account has been compromised, immediately, without
further delay, change your password. Use at least 16 characters, or the
maximum number, if less that 16 characters are allowed.
You may find it comforting to run assorted malware checks on your computer,
as well, just to be certain it hasn't been compromised.
You may already know this, but I will include it for completeness: If you
have ever sent an email to multiple recipient, using either "To:", or "Cc:"
for the list, you have sent your list of contacts to your recipient. If the
recipient was ever compromised, those email addresses will be exposed to the
malicious operator. In which case, spammers may have paid for, and received
your contact email addresses for use in their spam. Use "Bcc:" to avoid
that.
Also, there has already been a "phish" attempt reported here. Somebody
purporting to be from Windows Live, but actually not, sending a letter
intended to frighten the unwary Windows Live user into giving up his user
name and password by claiming that their account will be closed if they do
not respond with the information. Anybody receiving such an email, and
responding with the requested information, is giving up their account to
whomever sent the email.
Lastly, you may just be the victim of a spammer forgery. Its happened to
most people; I had a 'yahoo.com' account forged in the Summer of '02, or
'03' I received a wad of Delivery Failure Notices for email I never sent. I
even identified four fools using "MailWasher" to reply to their spam;
sending me their phony "MW" bounces (spit). It will pass. By the end of
eight weeks, my email volume for that account was back to normal.
Abuse complaints may be useful, if you properly identify the source of the
abuse. Many can't, and send the complaints to the wrong place. Be sure you
know how to identify the source (the "From:" email address is never right),
or else just delete and ignore the Postmaster bounces.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum
...winston
The more likely cause is your or someone else's address book was compromised at some point in time, your email address harvested
and now being used to forge headers in emails sent to other people. Once this occurs, beyond ensuring your account is
protected(secure password, secret question, alternate email address for reset) there is not much you can do from your end.
--
...winston
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