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Email messages about emails not being deliverable

penneck
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 1,089
Thanks: 79
Registered: ‎03-08-2007

Email messages about emails not being deliverable

I don't know what is going on, but today I have received about 10 emails telling me that emails are not deliverable. I don't know what these non-deliverable emails are. They weren't from me. Fortunately, I have Mailwasher on my pc, so I always look at incoming emails while they are still remote. That way I can get rid of emails I don't like the look of before they get here and do some damage. I have done that with these.

Have any of you got any idea what is going on?

Thanks

6 REPLIES 6
Baldrick1
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Re: Email messages about emails not being deliverable

@penneck 

I would assume that a spammer is using your email address as the sender. Hopefully they are just using your email address that has been leaked at some time but it would be worth you running a virus checker to make sure that you haven't picked up a nasty.

I have a rule that if one of my email addresses get leaked I immediately change it but I know that I am in the minority and many live with getting spam and phishing emails on a regular basis.

 If you put your email address in here you will see if the bad guys have it https://haveibeenpwned.com/

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penneck
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 1,089
Thanks: 79
Registered: ‎03-08-2007

Re: Email messages about emails not being deliverable

Hello @Baldrick1 ,

Having received 11 of these warning emails in a fairly quick burst. they seem to have stopped now (wishful thinking). I did as you suggested, namely checking all of my email addresses (and my wife's too). We all got positive results, but only 1 each. I have run Malwarebytes, Microsoft Security Essentials, and Spybot SD. Only Spybot spotted anything, but then Spybot always finds something.

Anyway, I think I'll stop worrying until I get any more of these emails.

Thankyou

 

Townman
Superuser
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Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Email messages about emails not being deliverable

There is no point worrying at all about this issue.  Your email address has been hi-jacked and was and will again be used to spoof emails to unsuspecting recipients, some of whom will be defunct email address.  This causes something called back scatter ... which is non-delivery reports being sent to the purported sender ... exactly as you describe here.

If you have positive hits on your email address, you should review the reported source of the compromise.  Then consider the password used with your email address for that service.  If the same email address and password combination are used elsewhere you really should go change the password in those services, including the one which was compromised.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

penneck
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 1,089
Thanks: 79
Registered: ‎03-08-2007

Re: Email messages about emails not being deliverable

They appear to have stopped. I haven't had any for a few weeks now, as against more than a dozen per day at their peak.

Cheers

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,921
Thanks: 9,538
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Email messages about emails not being deliverable

You will find that acquired email addressed get used in spoofing campaigns for a few days.  Then either teh campaign ceases or (hopefully) the villains get closed down.  However, anticipate a recurrence of this at sometime in the future.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

penneck
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 1,089
Thanks: 79
Registered: ‎03-08-2007

Re: Email messages about emails not being deliverable

@Townman  so far your description of events has been accurate, in that after a while these emails stopped. No sign yet of another wave - fingers crossed

Cheers