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Email viruses from my own username?

Ficon24
Newbie
Posts: 3
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎20-09-2017

Email viruses from my own username?

Today I've received 5 alerts from plusnet to say an email has been quarantined. The thing that's worrying me slightly is that each one appears to come from a different version of my own plusnet address - ie a name (Maryann Butterworth in the example pasted below) @ [my username].plus.com. Clearly it's a virus and should be immediately deleted, but I'm wondering a) why I've suddenly started getting loads of them; and b) how they can apparently come from my username?

 

Dear Plusnet Customer,

You are receiving this mail because you have an active virus-scanning
service, and either a banned file extension or an email containing
a virus has been sent to your address.

The mail was sent to you from:

*       "Maryann Butterworth" <Maryann.Butterworth@

The subject line of the mail received was:

*       [-SPAM-] Your Payment # 3225

In order to protect you, this email has been stored on our servers
and quarantined.  If you wish to retrieve this, please send an
email to unquarantine@quarantine.plus.com containing the following information;

----------------------- SUPPORT INFORMATION ----------------------
Quarantine-Id: de9efd0186cb5b5f687be3c3c65c2a0338884
Message-Id: <4829CA202A8F09CED3A94E5AA11C76F9254380DB@BACKROOM>
To: %TO%
----------------------- SUPPORT INFORMATION ------------------

 

18 REPLIES 18
spraxyt
Resting Legend
Posts: 10,063
Thanks: 674
Fixes: 75
Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

That alert message will have come from Plusnet and in itself is safe; however the quarantined message won't be.

Unfortunately the way email works it is very easy to send messages with any desired From or To address. Those lines are used only by email reading clients such as Outlook or Thunderbird, or by webmail for display purposes. The actual delivery address which is used by email servers is contained on what is often referred to as the Envelope to entry; similarly Envelope from for the sender. The latter can also be forged which can result in backscatter if delivery is refused. For paper letters the equivalent is From and To written on the letter could be different from what is written on the envelope and used by postal staff.

When spammers are sending out such emails their usual practice is to address the message to the user, but add a from address which looks to be official such as a well known company or official body. Unwary recipients might then click on links contained in the message because it is perceived to be from a reputable source. However in this case they might have intended to confuse the addressee and obtain a click by that means. Thankfully they were unsuccessful.

Why are you receiving these? Possibly because your email address has been harvested along with millions more and spammers are making use of that information. There are numerous posts about such spam in these forums. Hopefully this will stop soon.

David
cyrilclark1
Rising Star
Posts: 230
Thanks: 15
Registered: ‎22-01-2012

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

Thanks for that very informative post; I have received several of these particular emails in the past few days.

What I find strange, however is that the 'Alert' is addressed to 'Dear Plusnet customer' and not to the user's name.

That seems to me to make the whole email suspicicious.

Any ideas?

 

LoneBee
Rising Star
Posts: 95
Thanks: 12
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎27-03-2017

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

I also have been getting email alerting messages from plusnet virus scanning sevice about emails sent from my plusnet account, examples include:-

 

copier@[my account name].plus.com

vmservice@[my account name].plus.com

Queen.Norris[my account name].plus.com

It does feel like someone has hacked into my account, is the account safe if my email address has been "harvested"?

 

Lone

mort7890
Pro
Posts: 580
Thanks: 92
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎28-06-2007

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

I have also been getting such e-mails for the past few days, what I cannot understand is why PN cannot just delete them if they do not match an exact e-mail address that has been setup, in other words blackhole all e-mails not matching an exact address (exact.name@username.co.uk).

Ficon24
Newbie
Posts: 3
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎20-09-2017

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

Thanks, that's useful information. It's pretty annoying but I guess as long as plusnet picks them up, there's no real problem. And even if they did get through I know better than to open things like that!

Oldjim
Resting Legend
Posts: 38,460
Thanks: 787
Fixes: 63
Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

@mort7890 Because many of us use the catchall system to collect emails from multiple addresses where there isn't an address set up

For example when I have to give an email address to a shopping site - let us say abc.com

Then I give an address abc@username.plus.com which can then be blackholed if it gets a load of spam

mort7890
Pro
Posts: 580
Thanks: 92
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎28-06-2007

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

@Oldjim I can understand that and thanks however you are using the same @username.plus.com but a different abc@ and if this gets a lot of spam then you request it to be blackholed. I do not want the catchall system I just want e-mails that are exactly as set up on my account so surely PN can set up the blackhole for each client.

Oldjim
Resting Legend
Posts: 38,460
Thanks: 787
Fixes: 63
Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

You can turn off the Catchall yourself from Manage my Mail and then you would have exactly what you want

Catch All' Alias

The 'catch all' alias is a type of forwarding address which is switched on by default. You can apply this to any of your mailboxes, or switch it off. Find out more.

Keep the 'catch all' ON: to receive emails sent to any address ending in @holtlane.plus.com which aren't already collected by any of the mailboxes you've setup. (This is handy to collect email for many addresses, without needing to add each address individually).

Important: This may mean you receive more spam.

Switch the 'catch all' OFF: to only receive emails sent to specific addresses you've setup. We recommend you do this to reduce the amount of spam you get, as spammers often target random email addresses

mort7890
Pro
Posts: 580
Thanks: 92
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎28-06-2007

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

@Oldjim I did that years ago but I still get them (6 in the past few days) not only to my address but to other addresses in my account and all the addresses have the catchall in the off position. So how they are getting through beats me.

bobpullen
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 16,869
Thanks: 4,950
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Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

With catch-all off they definitely shouldn't be getting to you. Might be worth you toggling the setting on/off again and waiting a while to see if that helps. If it doesn't then let me know and I'll take a look.

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
If I've been helpful then please give thanks ⤵

LoneBee
Rising Star
Posts: 95
Thanks: 12
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎27-03-2017

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

I have switched "Catchall" off for my mailboxes and will monitor the accounts to see if this works. I note that some other members are reporting these spam mails are still getting through.

mort7890
Pro
Posts: 580
Thanks: 92
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎28-06-2007

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

@bobpullen OK Bob will do and report back.

Mayfly
All Star
Posts: 1,560
Thanks: 425
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Registered: ‎04-06-2009

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

I've had few of these over the last 3-4 days but mine are from MAAF.

LoneBee
Rising Star
Posts: 95
Thanks: 12
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎27-03-2017

Re: Email viruses from my own username?

Just to clarify, will the catchall system stop people sending emails to me using non-existent mailboxes in my own account.

The emails I have been notified about have been sent to my legitimate email address but the mail was sent to me from a non-existent address @[my account name].plus.com.