Email address spoofing

[Bateluer]

Since I've had this email address for a while, I have a number of sites, banks, schools, etc that utilize it for contact information. Changing everything isn't exactly practical. There's always been a few spam emails coming into it, but in the last 3 to 5 months, its increased for less than 10 per day to almost 80 per day. I suspect the dramatic increase may have something to do with my setting up email accounts for my brothers. They've always been a little careless with their email addresses and what sites they give them out at.

Using the Spam Assassin utility on my host, I've blacklisted dozens of email addresses, but it hasn't done anything to decrease the levels of spam because most of the addresses in the headers are gibberish@gibberish. Now, at least 2/3rds of the From addresses are my own email, indicating that it's being spoofed.

I've changed my already complex password for this email account to an even more complex password, 20+ characters, alphanumeric & Special characters, but it also has done little. In this case, I wasn't able to find anything very helpful with Google. I'm using Thunderbird as my mail client.

Any ideas on how to prevent this spoofing?

 

[lxskllr]

I don't completely understand what your problem is. Getting spam isn't email spoofing. If you mean that other people are getting spam with your address on it, it's probably a infection of someone else's box, and the mail in their address book is being used. Passwords and such on your end won't affect that.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
I don't completely understand what your problem is. Getting spam isn't email spoofing. If you mean that other people are getting spam with your address on it, it's probably a infection of someone else's box, and the mail in their address book is being used. Passwords and such on your end won't affect that.

On a large number of spam emails that I get, my own email address is listed as the 'From' address. My machine comes up clean for viruses, always has. The regularly changing on OSs also prevent viruses from gaining much of a food hold. Could be someone else in my address book though I doubt it. Most of the people in it are fairly tech savvy.

 

[tzdk]

I got same problem 6 months ago or so. Continues to this day, 5-10 a day. Dont think you can do anything except ignore. I searched for solution at first but all I found were warnings about this trick to fool you. All about getting people to click of course. Technically it is harmless - or damage already done since you got spammed. Have not noticed it much until recently but this article is from 2002 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/...8392.DTL&type=business

I use Gmail so all goes into spam-folder but still annoying. Also ended up on a blacklist once, think because of this - but they could be contacted and address was removed. This one http://www.fspamlist.com/ May be there is a site which can check an address against most used blacklists? I discovered when signing up for a forum.

 

[spikespiegal]

Why can't your spam filter block E-Mail messages that are supposedly (spoofed)from you? Most mail servers, including Exchange now have this filtering ability as well.

Since I've had this email address for a while, I have a number of sites, banks, schools, etc that utilize it for contact information

That's why you're getting hammered. Somebody got their address book harvested and your address was in it.

The gibberish names are typical from bot-net SMTP algorithms and nearly impossible to filter. If you check the source IPs in the e-mail header you'll likely see them rotate as well. Good spam filters, according to my experience, work off the actual content of the e-mail. Problem is the good ones cost money and frequently sell their filter algorithms to a bigger company.

 

[Bateluer]

I suppose I could black list my own email address. If I have to send myself something to that email, I'll just sent it from another address.

 

[RebateMonger]

In general, SPAM levels appear higher this year than last year. Or the Spammers are getting smarter.

The most effective thing would be to get a better SPAM filter. If you don't mind setting up Rules (in Outlook, for instance), it's not hard to get rid of most of the junk that gets by a not-perfect SPAM filter.

If SPAM is coming from your family, that's because a Spammer has both their email address AND your email address. It's assumed that if you receive an email from your own domain, you are more likely to read it and trust it.

 

[exitbs]

You can't get RID of SPAM, you can only prevent it from entering your inbox. SPAM ASSASIN is a great spam detection tool. I would see if you can up the settings to make it more sensitive to SPAM messages. You may get some people's emails blocked but at lease you arnt getting those annoying spam messages.