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how did all my 'secret' email addresses get compromised?


justmy2cents

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I'm getting spammed to death by this "w w w . rx555 . com" spam-thing.. On all my domains...

Can someone please answer my question?!

Question:

I bounce all mail by default.. Unless I have specifically specified the email address..

So mail at "blabla[at]mydomain.com" is bounced, while mail to "a-friend[at]mydomain.com" gets through..

I've NEVER EVER got spam at such an address..

But now all these 'secret' email addresses get spammed!!!

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?!?!?!

Please help! :(

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unfortunately there are lots of ways that it can happen.

They include things like viruses, spyware, hackers that have gotten into your system or into the systems of others that have your addresses in their address book.

The internet has become a dangerous place.

You may want to look at the firewalls and protection software you have installed on your computer and test your computer for security problems.

Good luck.

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I'm getting spammed to death by this "w w w. rx555 . com" spam-thing.. On all my domains...

Can someone please answer my question?!

You asked this in your other post in the Topic/Discussion that the referenced site came up in. Because you then decided to duplicate your question as a New Topic .... and with the bit of Subject shift ... your other post has been deleted.

I bounce all mail by default..

Terminology challenge .. "bounce" is simply too (many times) ill-defined. You start by mentioning "all my domains" but nothing is specifically said about e-mail servers. If you run your own, then the much better words would be "reject during SMTP" .... if you are not running those e-mail servers, then the word "bounce" brings up some bad, bad connotations. It's the accepting of e-mail, then deciding later that it's not deliverable, and the generation of a non-delivery notification that now gets sent to a Forged From: or Reply-To: address that has caused much grief for countless gazillions of people.

Unless I have specifically specified the email address..

So mail at "blabla[at]mydomain.com" is bounced, while mail to "a-friend[at]mydomain.com" gets through..

I've NEVER EVER got spam at such an address..

But now all these 'secret' email addresses get spammed!!!

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?!?!?!

This sounds more like "filtering" .. which is a far cry from rejection at attempted delivery time.

The above mentioned "Bounce" scenario sounds a bit too easy to go with as you 'advertising' that 'someone' is receiving those e-mails. And if you are sending out these belated 'bounces' .. it's hard telling just who you are 'talking' to ....

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The e-mails get rejected by the server (I use the apache command :fail: no such address here)

Anyhow that's not the question.. The question is, how did they get my email addresses.. I've scanned all PC's with numerous scanners.. No virus detected. spam is being send to addresses that are not in my Thunderbird app (but have been used a few years ago).. My brother has the exact same problem!

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If you have ever received or sent email from those addresses, then someone, somewhere has them. It could be in a friends address book, they get a virus, now the spammer has them.

A friend could have sent out a bulk email to all his contacts using the To field, so everyone that receives the email can see all the addresses.

Spammers also like to do dictionary attacks using the most common left hand email addresses, this is pretty effective if the email addresses are pretty commonly used. Some will even do brute for dictionary attacks, starting with a[at]domain.com and working their way through as many addresses as they can.

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I've scanned all PC's with numerous scanners.. No virus detected.

SpyWare and or Trojans are not a computer virus, they are hidden programs running on ones computer. They can allow complete access and control of that computer. Therefore not always picked up by Virus programs, even (although best bet) dedicated spyware programs can and do miss them

It maybe your computer is clean, but not the computer/s you send email to (also infected ISP's can grab email addresses as they go through their server)

Try the link to symantec in my signature for a complete external security check (its free)

You need to consider using a blocklist to sort your email. The SCBL is the best to do this as it lists spammers while trying to send spam not after it is sent. All on this list have had a report sent to the listed addressof IP (Unless found to be blackhat and giving personal details of members, or do not want reports)

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