Delivery Failure with E-mail Coming Out of Nowhere? E-Mail Spoofing  

As if spamming isn't enough to be annoyed at, e-mail spoofing is a hot tactic these days.  This article will explain a little of how a spammer uses your e-mail address to send other spam and why you end up with a ton of delivery failure notices in your inbox.

The most common kind of spoofing is when a computer has been infected with a virus and randomly sends out spam while the user is away from the computer (idle time).  Most of the time this happens to computers that do not have the latest updates to the operating system and/or protection utilities (anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc.)   So, why is it you are getting the delivery failure notices?  Simple really,  your e-mail address is in some-body's address book and the spammer choose to pick on your e-mail address send as many e-mails as possible under your name before it is flagged as spam or black listed.  So what can you do to stop it?  You can't, but you can protect yourself and prevent it from ever happening on your computer....to bad for the computer sending it though.

•  Never open an attachment that you do not know who it is from or it seems odd and unlikely to have come from that person.

•  Put attachments into a special folder and have your anti-virus (up-to-date) scan it before opening.

•  Most virus' spread themselves from an address book, so you are more likely to receive a virus from somebody you know, than somebody you don't.  If you find that somebody you know has sent you a virus, be kind and let them know they are spreading virus' and need to get their system disinfected.

So why do spammers seem to have nothing better to do with their time then to send out these annoyances?  There are a couple of reasons I can think of.

•  Spy Vs. Spy:  One hacker or spammer trying to out do the other.

•  To intentionally cause harm to the world.

•  To make money using this as a black hat way tricking the user into buying a something.

•  To gain access to computer and retrieve personal identifiable information to later use for self gain (identity theft in other words).

How to protect yourself:

•  Keep your system on the up and up with latest patches and software updates with the anti-virus/anti-spyware programs.  We recommend AVG Internet Security.  It is very reliable and hardly lets a virus by or though the cracks.  It automatically updates and runs routine scans, while not getting in the way of your daily tasks.

•  Use common sense:  Don't open stuff that looks fishy.  Friends normally sign off and address you by first name in an e-mail.  If you know a person doesn't type in broken English than it is likely a scam.

•  Websites never send e-mails asking for your password or to ask you to resubmit it through an email or follow a certain link.  A legitimate e-mail from a website will tell you that you need to change your password or login credentials at the time you login into the websites secure pages.

While this isn't a full grocery list of how and why spammers do what they do, the point is, the best prevention is the user intervention, or just some common sense.  Thanks for stopping by and we hope you enjoyed this article.