Spam commandeering email address

[Androcles]

I have just received over 2000 message failure reports from email addresses all over the world, which makes it clear that somebody has sent a load of email using my email address. I have checked my PC using myVirus checker and two types of Spyware detection and it is clean. My PC operates behind both router firewall and and a desktop firewall, which are showing nothing out of the ordinary.

So my question is how do these guys manage to hijack your email address - what is the mechanism they use to do it.? Can you protect against it?

Many thanks....

[fo3nix]

Nothing.

It's a feature (or lack of) of the email system.

If you want, you can send email from [email protected], or anyone else. You may be able to tell that it's not from Microsoft's servers in the headers, but that's it. (And most won't look at the headers.)

If you use a domain name that you control to send and receive email, then you can use SPF in the TXT definition.

http://www.openspf.org/

Hopefully, that will serve to reduce this from occuring.

[Androcles]

Thanks, fo3nix.

It was a bit of a shaker to see such a full mailbox. One just worries that you have missed something in your defences!

Androcles