Getting emails spoofed from myself. Opinions sought.

paydaydaddy · 05-17-2009, 02:10 PM

I have my spam filter set to screen out emails from addresses not in my address book. Lately I have been getting a lot of junk mail that shows my email address as the originator. I am 99.9% sure that none of my computers are compromised. I suspect that somebody out there with my address in their address book has an infected computer that is sending out spam with spoofed addresses of origin. When I check properties of these emails I don't see anything that seems to indicate the origin except my email address. My questions is, "Would alerting my ISP to this problem have any chance of getting to the bottom of this problem?". Furthermore, I am open to suggestions for a fix. All suggestions and opinions are appreciated.

paydaydaddy · 05-20-2009, 08:19 AM

An update on this. I contacted my ISP and was told that they may be able to help. The person I talked to was a bit unsure of how to proceed, but I started by forwarding a spoofed email to their resident expert. I will post developments to this thread just in case there is any interest in how this unfolds.

billermo · 05-21-2009, 03:53 AM

Yes, every day I get plenty of emails from myself that I don't remember sending myself, usually related to ******, increasing the size of certain body parts, etc. While it's possible I blacked out and have a split personality that's doing this, I'm also considering the possibility that you suggest above. ;)

Seriously, yes I'd be curious to see if there's a way to track these down. My gut feeling is that they wouldn't be doing so much of it if it was risky.

By the way, Gmail is quite good at handling these kinds of emails. These emails almost alway go straight to my junk folder when I use Gmail. It's pretty rare junk mail of any kind ends up in my Inbox.

Good luck

05-17-2009, 02:10 PM	#1 (permalink)
paydaydaddy Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 15 OS: xp home sp3	Getting emails spoofed from myself. Opinions sought. I have my spam filter set to screen out emails from addresses not in my address book. Lately I have been getting a lot of junk mail that shows my email address as the originator. I am 99.9% sure that none of my computers are compromised. I suspect that somebody out there with my address in their address book has an infected computer that is sending out spam with spoofed addresses of origin. When I check properties of these emails I don't see anything that seems to indicate the origin except my email address. My questions is, "Would alerting my ISP to this problem have any chance of getting to the bottom of this problem?". Furthermore, I am open to suggestions for a fix. All suggestions and opinions are appreciated. Last edited by paydaydaddy; 05-17-2009 at 02:11 PM.

05-20-2009, 08:19 AM	#2 (permalink)
paydaydaddy Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 15 OS: xp home sp3	Re: Getting emails spoofed from myself. Opinions sought. An update on this. I contacted my ISP and was told that they may be able to help. The person I talked to was a bit unsure of how to proceed, but I started by forwarding a spoofed email to their resident expert. I will post developments to this thread just in case there is any interest in how this unfolds.

05-21-2009, 03:53 AM	#3 (permalink)
billermo Registered User Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 162 OS: Win XP	Re: Getting emails spoofed from myself. Opinions sought. Yes, every day I get plenty of emails from myself that I don't remember sending myself, usually related to ******, increasing the size of certain body parts, etc. While it's possible I blacked out and have a split personality that's doing this, I'm also considering the possibility that you suggest above. ;) Seriously, yes I'd be curious to see if there's a way to track these down. My gut feeling is that they wouldn't be doing so much of it if it was risky. By the way, Gmail is quite good at handling these kinds of emails. These emails almost alway go straight to my junk folder when I use Gmail. It's pretty rare junk mail of any kind ends up in my Inbox. Good luck