Strange test messages

[#1]

Every message is different, just random sentences like this -

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hi there Italy and from then on he spent most of his life getting to know the Italians and their civilization. Oliver Bronson House and Estate. He believes that the philosopher is key in furthering the fields of science. The myotomy is a lengthwise cut along the esophagus, starting above the LES and extending down onto the stomach a little way.

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hi there They made their debut on 27 May 1940 at the Valle Theatre in Rome. Roni and Cheese was born. The hill has a summit of 84m AOD. Jewish origin subsequently enlarged by a few Christian additions, and it is Kohler's stance that most scholars follow today.

[#2]

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Test 2631189S Reginald [Micah.bf@gardellaent.com] To: xx@xxx test message. Over the years, several of the bridges along Ocean Drive have been reconstructed. Engo and Rizer as they journey to their respective countries to see the face of AIDS from two sides of the globe. Belbo's apartment, and reads all the documents that Belbo stored in his computer, then decides to follow Belbo to Paris himself. Umar had grown accustomed to physical pleasure.

and

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Test 1943614Q Courtney [Blaine.d60b@business.telecomitalia.it To; xxx@xxx test message. Coaldale, which was opened in 2000. From Research to commit fraud. All six crew were saved. It was the poor helping the poor.

[#3]

Another 21 of these messages so far this morning. Going to switch off my catch-all account until this is either sorted or goes away

[#4]

I had several yesterday and today.  I generally give out unique email addresses somethingunique@mydomain.co.uk which are caught by the catchall feature and have had these spam emails addressed to several variants of these unique addresses.  Its seems wider than just Plusnet http://www.edugeek.net/forums/general-chat/145189-test-mesage-spam-mass-mailing-virus.html.  What would people recommend in terms of Plusnet's SPAM filter settings to block these?

[#5]

Over the last week or so I've been getting up to 10 of these a day to random address.
So far today I am getting close to a 100. Looked at a few headers and haven't found two to come from the same address yet.
Just wondered if anyone else has been getting these?

[#6]

Quote from: purleigh

If you are more recent Plusnet sign-ups,  then I wonder if Plusnet's email has been compromised again, which is a possibility with the direction this other current topic is heading - "Spam to plusnet-specific Email address"

We're looking into the observations from that thread Purleigh. There's no evidence to suggest that any of Plusnet's systems have been compromised, unfortunately that's not the only way these addresses could have made it out into the wild

Quote from: grovep

What would people recommend in terms of Plusnet's SPAM filter settings to block these?

Not particularly easy as the messages I've seen seem to originate from a botnet, used spoofed sender addresses and contain no hyperlinks or HTML. You could set up some local rules using your mail client, but there's little you can do server side to stem the messages. Hopefully Cloudmark will grow wise to them over time.

[#7]

Does Plusnet not use a Bayesian filter (or similar technique) to identify these widespread SPAM outbreaks ?
I'm finding that the 'Junk' filter in 'Thunderbird' is correctly identifying these messages every time.

[#8]

I got ONE this morning, addressed to a little used, but available on the internet, address.... was entitled Test Message... and the text was something about a girls school, sort of random sentences, good english, but not connected to each other !...

Had a Polish email address
Binned it  !..

[#9]

Hi Folks
Every website or forum I sign up for,
is given a unique email inbox & password.
I've probably signed up for > 1,000 websites/forums.
I've been a member since last century,
having Force9, Free-Online, & Plusnet email accounts.

Catchalls received -
- F9 - 7 - All to post-hack, spammer variant inboxes.
- FOL - 8 - 4 to self-created inboxes, 4 to post-hack, spammer variant inboxes.
- Plusnet - Zero

Addresses match previous events,
and relate to emails present in inbox during previous hack.

HTH
ATB
Paul

[#10]

Yes, a few here too, but nowhere near as many as you (yet). I don't suppose there is anything we can do except hope that whatever anti-spam software we use will catch most of them before we see them.
  - Keith

[#11]

I have had about 50 of the things during yesterday and today.
They all have gone straight into 'Trash' which was immediately emptied.
Keith

[#12]

Mod Note
2 topics on the same subject merged.

[#13]

I've had some to my Force9 address and some to my personal domain address but none so far to my Hotmail address.

[#14]

I don't know whether to feel left out or smug Not had any of these e-mails (to date )
Phil

[#15]

Read final post
they seem to have a good case that their problems are a leak from Santander (or rather it will be a marketing company) that the bank used.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4811298&page=4