My email account is sending out spam?!?!

[Cali]

OMG this really sucks. I'm hoping its some trick or something. I just received a spam email FROM myself, to myself. I didn't send it (obviously).

Does this mean that my email address has been sending out spam to others?! What do I do to fix this??? I don't want my email addy to be put onto spam lists- i've had it for years.

Help!

[Grimmlok]

your computer is a zombie! you probably got a trojan virus sometime ago and it's turned your computer into a spamzombie

[nancydrew]

Mine was doing that from my old ISP account. I googled it and found there really isn't much that can be done, but that was a few months ago so things may have changed.

[bellini]

I send myself links to prescription drugs sites, mostly for Viagra. I've Googled all over to try to find a way to stop it, but no luck. You can't block yourself from yourself. It sucks because they send me ten or more everyday. All I can do is delete them.

If you find out how to stop it, please post it.

[MysTerious]

First make sure you do an Anti Virus and Spy Ware scan.

.... once that is done, well there's nothing much you can do. This is one way that spammers try to "hide" their trail - by sending you an email a spam from "you". They may also send spam as you to other people, but you won't know until someone either sends you a nasty reply, or you start getting "bounced back" emails.

Either way once your email is out, there isn't much you can do.

[twitchy2.0]

Why do I seem to be sending spam to myself?

Tim Gossling is getting spam that claims it has been sent from his own email address

I've just had a spam email in which the "from" address was the same as the "to" address, ie mine. The subject was something like Error: returned email. Is this a new wheeze to get round spam filters?

Tim Gossling
Yes. Internet email systems don't actually use the To: and From: addresses, which can be forged to say anything. The recipient (you) is identified in the headers that are created when the mail software sends the email to the mail server. Mail headers are hard to read, and nowadays, most mail software hides them. The trick works because curiosity may make people more likely to read a message they appear to have sent themselves. Also, you can't really blacklist your own address, though *content-based blockers should still catch this type of spam. But I wouldn't worry about it unless you have a copy of the same email in your Sent folder.
Why do I seem to be sending spam to myself? | Technology | guardian.co.uk

So it's just a spoof. You aren't sending spam, it's just making it look like you sent it to yourself.

[mtlebay]

change your password STAT. If it's a someone that has your password, you can stop it (happened in my Facebook).

[Cali]

Do any of you guys know about email headers etc? I'm going to paste the long headers here, but replace:
- my email adddy with CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM
- my name, CALI MCAWESOME.
- my doman, SOMEWHERE

I want to know WTF is going on here and I don't understand enough about it.

From: CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM
Subject: wefewrfw
Date: October 2, 2009 11:07:20 PM EDT
To: CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM
Return-Path: <fgerfe@erwfe.com>
Received: from smtpin122-bge351000 ([unknown] [10.150.68.122]) by ms331.SOMEWHERE.com (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 7u2-7.05 64bit (built Jul 30 2009)) with ESMTP id <0KQX009VY1W7ZUM0@ms331.SOMEWHERE.com> for CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM; Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:07:19 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from user-0c6thuf.cable.mindspring.com ([unknown] [24.110.199.207]) by smtpin122.SOMEWHERE.com (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 7u2-7.04 32bit (built Jul 2 2009)) with SMTP id <0KQX00MQX1W65H50@smtpin122.SOMEWHERE.com> for CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM (ORCPT CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM); Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:07:19 -0700 (PDT)

Received: (qmail 2977 by uid 322); Fri, 02 Oct 2009 22:07:20 -0500
Original-Recipient: rfc822;CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM
X-Proofpoint-Virus-Version:
vendor=fsecure engine=1.12.8161:2.4.5,1.2.40,4.0.166 definitions=2009-10-02_08:2009-09-29,2009-10-02,2009-10-02 signatures=0
X-Proofpoint-Spam-Details:
rule=notspam policy=default score=13 spamscore=13 ipscore=0 phishscore=0 bulkscore=0 adultscore=0 classifier=spam adjust=0 reason=mlx engine=5.0.0-0908210000 definitions=main-0910020184
Message-Id: <20091003020720.2979.qmail@user0c6thuf.cable.minds pring.com>
X-Sender: CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Any ideas??

[L1049]

Do any of you guys know about email headers etc? I'm going to paste the long headers here, but replace:
- my email adddy with CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM
- my name, CALI MCAWESOME.
- my doman, SOMEWHERE

I want to know WTF is going on here and I don't understand enough about it.

From: CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM
Subject: wefewrfw
Date: October 2, 2009 11:07:20 PM EDT
To: CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM
Return-Path: <fgerfe@erwfe.com>
Received: from smtpin122-bge351000 ([unknown] [10.150.68.122]) by ms331.SOMEWHERE.com (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 7u2-7.05 64bit (built Jul 30 2009)) with ESMTP id <0KQX009VY1W7ZUM0@ms331.SOMEWHERE.com> for CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM; Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:07:19 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from user-0c6thuf.cable.mindspring.com ([unknown] [24.110.199.207]) by smtpin122.SOMEWHERE.com (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 7u2-7.04 32bit (built Jul 2 2009)) with SMTP id <0KQX00MQX1W65H50@smtpin122.SOMEWHERE.com> for CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM (ORCPT CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM); Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:07:19 -0700 (PDT)

Received: (qmail 2977 by uid 322); Fri, 02 Oct 2009 22:07:20 -0500
Original-Recipient: rfc822;CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM
X-Proofpoint-Virus-Version:
vendor=fsecure engine=1.12.8161:2.4.5,1.2.40,4.0.166 definitions=2009-10-02_08:2009-09-29,2009-10-02,2009-10-02 signatures=0
X-Proofpoint-Spam-Details:
rule=notspam policy=default score=13 spamscore=13 ipscore=0 phishscore=0 bulkscore=0 adultscore=0 classifier=spam adjust=0 reason=mlx engine=5.0.0-0908210000 definitions=main-0910020184
Message-Id: <20091003020720.2979.qmail@user0c6thuf.cable.mindsp ring.com>
X-Sender: CALI@SOMEWHERE.COM
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Any ideas??

The bolded is where the email came from, and I can't find much on the IP

The italics is from an internal server and it shows when the email was received and to sent out. This IP comes from Orlando, so I'm guessing it's the IP addy to your email provider, I'm not completely sure.

[A*O]

The IP originates in Orlando, Florida. It's amazing what you can find out if you just Google an IP. There's other stuff there about bots and browsers which I don't understand being the technotard that I am. What you can actually DO if your puter is infected is another matter. Probably not much. You might have to think about getting yourself a new, more secure email addy. Gmail is good.

[micashell]

I think the return path is relevant.

I've had a look at headers of emails I've received from family etc, and the return path is always their email address (i.e the address from which it actually came).

As the return path on yours isn't your email address or even a variant of that, I would say that is probably the spammer.