Spam Email

[Steve]

Pretty much all of the spam email that gets sent to my account gets stopped by my ISP at their end, so it never even arrives at my computer. This service works well and I like it. However, every now and then, I log into my account online (rather than through my computer's mail client) just to check the spam box to make sure I haven't missed any emails that should have got through the filter, which happens from time to time. By letting these through manually, the filter then learns that they are ok, which is also useful.

Anyway, I'm seeing three alarming trends in my online spam box over the last few months:

The first is the increasing (up to about 40% maybe now) number of spam emails that appear to have come from my own email address, i.e. sent from me, to me.

The second trend is the number of spam emails that have subject lines like 'Your Order Status' or 'Re: Your Order' or 'Your Order' and 'Delivery Status Notification' etc. Basically, these are the typical kinds of email subject lines that you get from online heli stores such as Midlands, Fast Lads, Skyline etc etc. I'm not having a pop at the stores here, just giving generic examples that most of you are probably familiar with.

The third trend which is also very common is a combination of one and two together in the same spam email.

The spam emails have the usual tripe of content that we all get all the time, but what concerns me here really is the trend that I'm noticing and how it's got progressively more prevalent over the last 6 months or so. Is it linked to the online shops, or are the spam developers more sophisticated than that? Anyone else noticed this?

:(

[elektromodely.com]

[quote=The Manager;192990]Pretty much all of the spam email that gets sent to my account gets stopped by my ISP at their end, so it never even arrives at my computer. This service works well and I like it. However, every now and then, I log into my account online (rather than through my computer's mail client) just to check the spam box to make sure I haven't missed any emails that should have got through the filter, which happens from time to time. By letting these through manually, the filter then learns that they are ok, which is also useful.

Anyway, I'm seeing three alarming trends in my online spam box over the last few months:

The first is the increasing (up to about 40% maybe now) number of spam emails that appear to have come from my own email address, i.e. sent from me, to me.

The second trend is the number of spam emails that have subject lines like 'Your Order Status' or 'Re: Your Order' or 'Your Order' and 'Delivery Status Notification' etc. Basically, these are the typical kinds of email subject lines that you get from online heli stores such as Midlands, Fast Lads, Skyline etc etc. I'm not having a pop at the stores here, just giving generic examples that most of you are probably familiar with.

The third trend which is also very common is a combination of one and two together in the same spam email.

The spam emails have the usual tripe of content that we all get all the time, but what concerns me here really is the trend that I'm noticing and how it's got progressively more prevalent over the last 6 months or so. Is it linked to the online shops, or are the spam developers more sophisticated than that? Anyone else noticed this?

:([/quote]

This is the common problem - spammers and/or viruses/trojans use all domains list/e-mails list to use them for the both FROM and TO field (one virus used the outlook address book to choose randomly TO and FROM field) and and often e-mails returned by SMTP server with the subject undeliverable mail: blah blah blah with something like saefuhweihe@YOUR_DOMAIN in FROM field so it seems like YOU tried to send this message and it was returned to you...

Just view the source of such e-mails to see what SMTP server was used to send them - look for the text lines which begins with 'Received' string, like this one:
received: from unknown (HELO ducat.kz) (212.116.224.170)
These lines are added automatically by the SMTP servers on the way between the real sender and the given e-mail address.
The usual 'From' line is just the string - the sender can put any text here while he is sending that e-mail but the good admin of the SMTP server will not allow to send such e-mail (only his registered domains in the 'From' line), but we see that there are so many bad boys out there these days...

I use the linux machine for 18 years for all e-mails so I have NO PROBLEM with such spams nor wiruses/trojans (just some time spent on deleting thousands of the spam e-mails daily) because these hidden EXE files are just a sequence of the bytes for linux not the executable file :-)

No way to exist on Micro$oft because the security patches are available later than the new viruses...

[Steve]

Thanks.

I'm not concerned about the virus threats as these emails accounts are held on my Mac at home, and my ISP's spam filter is very good - I only ever see these emails when I login online, not via my mail client.

It's just the trend that concerns me, and the way in which it is following the genuine emails that I receive from the online heli shops.

[Disc]

[quote=The Manager;192999]Thanks.

I'm not concerned about the virus threats as these emails accounts are held on my Mac at home, and my ISP's spam filter is very good - I only ever see these emails when I login online, not via my mail client.

It's just the trend that concerns me, and the way in which it is following the genuine emails that I receive from the online heli shops.[/quote]

Steve,

Turn on Mail's Junk filter it will then learn and catch the junk mail getting through to you.

[Steve]

You're missing my point, or I'm not explaining it very well.

I'm not worried about spam getting through, because it doesn't, it gets stopped at my ISP long before it gets anywhere near my computer.

However, if I login online direct to my ISP via a web browser rather than a local mail client, I can view the spamails that have been stopped while I'm looking for any occasional genuine emails that might also have been stopped.

The point is - I'm concerned about the 'trend' that the spamails are copying the genuine emails that I receive from heli online shops.