Dear CNET members,
Happy Friday! I hope this newsletter finds you well. In my neck of the woods, a lot of folks are getting colds already, so please do your best to stay healthy. This week's question comes from Ted, who not only is receiving spam e-mails, but spam is also coming from his e-mail address! As if receiving e-mail spam isn't annoying enough, but receiving it from yourself--that's got to be disturbing. Many members posted in the discussion thread that they, too, are experiencing the same thing, so you aren't alone.
After going through many of our members' advice and suggestions, there are numerous ways as to how this could be happening. A list of possibilities brought up by our members is e-mail spoofing (most common, where the spammer has changed the "From" line to display your e-mail address to make it look as if it's coming from you, but it's not), a spammer has hijacked your e-mail account and using it send out e-mails (in this case, changing your password would be a good idea), another would be where your computer is infected by malicious software of some sort and it's using your own e-mail client to send out e-mails, and one of the worst is if someone else's system has been infected sending out spam e-mail in your good name. These scenarios are probably the most common cases, but there are others.
Whichever way it is happening, there is good and bad news. The good news is the things that are within your control can be resolved--malicious software cleaning, changing passwords, and so on. However, the bad news is the ones that are beyond your control may be difficult to resolve, or there may simply be nothing you can do. If you read through our members' answers to you, you'll get a good idea of all possibilities of how this all happened, but more importantly pay special attention to the members who offer advice on how to prevent this from happening in the future. I have a few selected member answers to get you going, but please check out all the advice and recommendations. Thanks for participating! Be safe and have an awesome weekend!
Cheers!
- Lee
Got suggestions? Send me an e-mail: messageboards@cnet.com
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Dear CNET folks, Today I received an e-mail addressed from my
OWN mailbox touting some dubious, probably obscene free
video. I am alarmed and deeply concerned that my own e-mail
address is being used for spam purposes, and am worried that
I may be being blocked by receiving servers or recipients
when I'm sending out (proper) e-mail. Additionally, I feel
that my good name is being dragged in the dirt with such
obscene mails. This is not the first time this has happened,
but the second (different topics though). I ignored the
first e-mail a few months ago and completely deleted it off
my system. The current offending e-mail has got links
embedded, but I have not clicked on any of them (I am aware
of such consequences).
Featured member solutions
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