Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam

Subject: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Jul 15 - 03:08 PM

I've often received emails from friends, telling to to click such-and-such a link. The link usually ends with the extension *.php. Being a suspicious sort, I never click such links - but I'm sure that a lot of people do. I'm quite sure that these emails are fraudulent, and didn't really come from my friends. Usually, they come from friends that have email accounts with the most common carriers, hotmail, yahoo, or comcast - but not always.

There are times when a friend's email account is hijacked, and a Spammer has logged onto the friend's account and taken it over. If this is the case, my friend is in real trouble. He/she can try to log in and change the password - but if he/she can log in, then probably the account isn't hijacked. If it IS hijacked, most carriers have a way for users to contact the carried and verify identity through alternate methods to get the account back.

What happens usually is that my friend's account has been spoofed - somebody has used my friend's email address in place of the actual address that is sending the email. If my friend can access his/her email normally, then it's only spoofing that has taken place, not a complete hijacking. There's not much I can do if somebody has spoofed my address, but the experts say that Spammers don't use spoofed addresses very long, so the problem will most likely go away on its own in a few days.

This article makes a lot of sense. Take a look.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Jul 15 - 04:27 PM

An unwelcome development: mailing list hosting services like MailChimp that edit outgoing messages. All URLs get replaced with spoofed links that point to a site you've never heard of, which does something you can't predict before sending you to the site you thought you clicked on. This behaviour is indistinguishable from what phishers do when they try to get you to click on fake banking sites; if you configure your email client to ignore warnings about it, you'll be leaving yourself open to the phishers too.

London Klezmer Quartet, that means you.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jul 15 - 04:55 AM

@Jack Campin
I have never seen Ilana post here, if you have something to say to her about the LKQ newsletters it would be far more useful to say it direct.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 03 Jul 15 - 05:48 AM

One of my email addresses has been spoofed from time to time. I find out when I receive non-delivery reports. What the spammers haven't yet managed to do is to gain access to my contacts, so the spam has only gone out to people who have probably never heard of me. And I likewise get spam purporting to come from people whom I have never heard of. As Joe says, the problem usually goes away soon, until next time.

Jack mentions "spoofed links that point to a site you've never heard of, which does something you can't predict before sending you to the site you thought you clicked on."

Spoofed links are very easy to make. Here is an INNOCUOUS example that I have just made: anybank log-in

I use a mail client that displays only plain text. Any HTML is converted to plain text, showing the actual URLs. The HTML is also shown as a pseudo-attachment that I can open separately in a browser IF I choose to do so.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jul 15 - 07:08 AM

I have told Ilana about the problem. She doesn't get it, and presumably isn't using the spoofed links for anything. I got myself taken off the LKQ list; I can find out what they're doing by going direct to their website anyway. It seems MailChimp gets quite a few clients who don't understand the implications of the way they operate.

Much worse is what Simon Thoumire does for his Hands Up For Trad mailings. He's doing it deliberately - the spoofed links are used for marketing information.

My email client doesn't unpack HTML, but does pop up a warning when you click on it if an apparent URL doesn't match the real one.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 03 Jul 15 - 07:29 AM

e (Glosfolk) have been using Mailchimp for our weekly mailing for about a year with no problems at all! (well none reported by members, or experienced by me!)

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jul 15 - 08:50 AM

OK, you don't get it either.

If I ever need to find out what's on in Gloucester I won't use your mailing list to find out.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 03 Jul 15 - 10:15 AM

It is IMHO very poor practice to deride someone for not understanding what you say; usually that lack of understanding is because of your poor explanation in the first place

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jul 15 - 10:28 AM

What exactly was wrong with my explanation?

Can you do better? If so let's see it.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: EBarnacle
Date: 03 Jul 15 - 01:13 PM

Do not open any file that includes .php on its address. They come through with some regularity and often claim to be "As seen on Oprah." As I have never opened one, I am not sure what kind of malware they contain but I would rather be safe and suspicious than a victim.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 03 Jul 15 - 01:58 PM

My email provider recently stopped my email account. I phoned and tech explained that someone had sent about 200 emails using my address - I got a couple returned and wondered?? We changed my password to something quite obscure and that was that. A terrific provider!

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Jul 15 - 02:57 AM

I use many email addresses, the facility comes with domain names. One I use quite regularly is (not the real one of course) [e-mail] for anything I think will get spammed.
Plus another for purchases on Ebay etc. Which does alert me to the kosher responsible outfits. Sometimes I generate unique ones to identify the careless &/or irresponsible.
It is quite revealing, I got a spam from Olga this morning saying "Hello" - not sure what she wanted but this comes hot on the heals of a webform submission & automated reply when I told my local MP something inconsequential about the incompleteness of his webform.
Two years ago he didn't even manage an automated reply. He is a smarmy git anyway. Not 'as in a smarmy politician', he is more smarmy than that!

I have just taken out a new domain name. Let us see how long it takes for the miscreants to notice.

Oh & Joe, as much as you value your friends' intelligence, I bet there are they that copy jokes to groups (in the "To" field) and when the final e-mail arrives back to the originator they have a swag of addresses.

Often the "Reply to" and "From" differ marginally internally anyway. & "From" says nothing accurate about where is came from, it can be anything the spoof sender wants to put.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: treewind
Date: 04 Jul 15 - 04:04 AM

'"From" says nothing accurate about where is came from, it can be anything the spoof sender wants to put.'

Good point that has been missed in the rest of the thread and the linked article. Spammers insert random harvested email addresses in the "From:" field, and that means sometimes YOUR email address is inserted there. When that happens your account hasn't been hacked, and you can't do anything about it.

I'm not saying email accounts don't get hacked, but that's not the only way that a spam message can appear to have come from your email address.

When you do get hacked, often the hackers don't change your password, so you carry on using the account without knowing anything has gone wrong. When you do find out there's a problem and change your password, the hacker has to start from scratch to discover it again.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jul 15 - 04:25 AM

Do not open any file that includes .php on its address. They come through with some regularity and often claim to be "As seen on Oprah." As I have never opened one, I am not sure what kind of malware they contain but I would rather be safe and suspicious than a victim.

php is the most widely used server side scripting language on the Internet. Wikipedia estimates that in 2014, 82% of websites (where the server language is known) are using php.

OK a lot of sites hide the extension from the user these days but most people will viewing sites that use php every day. Wikipedia, Facebook, Wordpress, etc. all make use of php.

That said, you really do not want to opening "As seen on Oprah.". That would be the case even it there was no extension of the extension was say .cfm (Cold Fusion - what Mudcat uses).

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Jul 15 - 05:25 PM

PHP on websites is standard. A PHP link in an email is pretty unusual and it's probably safe never to click on it (if you can identify it, that is - if you've been a regular recipient of MailChimp messages you've probably disabled any warnings you might get about it).

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Jul 15 - 06:34 PM

Want to avoid all this tsoris?

Stick a stamp on it & put it in the postal mail.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Mr Red
Date: 05 Jul 15 - 05:15 AM

You mean all that bumph that drops through my letterbox doesn't exist?

Apart from the physicality, what is the notional difference between spam and junk mail?

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: EBarnacle
Date: 05 Jul 15 - 01:11 PM

You cannot hurt your computer [or your credit rating] by reading and usually discarding physical mail.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Jul 15 - 01:47 PM

And then there's the physical mail that ISN'T junk that gets there reliably, on time, and un-hacked.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 06:27 AM

Pip had an interesting one this morning. On top surface it seemed believable - sent by the person's nickname @ say gmail and addressing Pip.

It claimed the person had an accident on holiday, had money stolen and was in hospital. It also asked for (not stated but presumably leading to financial) help. I'm not sure that Pip would be the first port of call in such a situation but if the person was really stuck, I couldn't rule her out entirely as a possible source of help.

Pip called me over and asked me to read it. My first thoughts were the same as hers. It didn't read as if it had come from the person in question. The grammar was poor starters.

Pip managed to contact the person by phone and all is well. Except for wondering how it happened. My feeling is whoever sent it has got hold of the person's email details and address book.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 07:29 AM

Guest,Jon - This a vary common spam - I've had at least 4 'from' different friends over the last few years. I assume the problem is use of dodgy internet cafes when travelling, which I avoid.

Phil

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 10:34 AM

These emails often come from people who have never left home. The spammer just needs to get hold of the victim's address book, which they can do if the mark is running Windows and downloads a trojan which will pass it on to the spammer.

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: Newport Boy
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 05:28 PM

I know that's true generally, Jack, but the handful of these emails I've received have all come from personal friends who travel regularly. No business addresses or volunteer colleagues. Maybe a coincidence, but I assumed a slightly more intelligent spammer.

BTW, the Guest two above was me.

Phil

Subject: RE: Tech: When Your Email Sends Spam
From: GUEST,Duane D.
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 06:45 PM

There is something I did to my computers to keep spam from spreading beyond my computers. I copied my address book into a folder of my own naming, on my computer, in a place I could access, separate from my email account. I then deleted my original address book. This way, if my computer becomes contaminated, it will not spread via my email addresses.