Is Someone Hijacking My E-mail?
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I have written about different types of Scams, Spams and basic Underhanded types of intrusions on Blogs, Websites and E-mail. Most of these things can be overcome with Plug-ins like Akismet or different Filters on your E-mail server (I use SpamAssisin) or even with some ToolBars.
I have come across something that is troubling in my E-mail since I got my own domain with E-mail capabilities.
Return Mail…
That doesn’t sound too ominous does it? The problem is, I NEVER SENT any E-mail to Any of the Addresses I am getting the return mail from. Since I use Outlook Express as my mail client, I don’t seem to be having real problems with normal spam.
What I’m afraid of is Someone else is using my E-mail address from my Host Service (BlueHost) to Send Spam. I am not getting returns on the addresses I use on any of my sites, but the actual Mail Administrator account.
I will be sending an E-mail to BlueHost regarding this apparent misuse of my account. I have no idea even how to start in resolving this problem other than that.
Suggestions??? PLEASE!!!
Before I run into Bigger Problems.
Thanks,
Joe
Update: I did open a ticket with BlueHost, and within minutes I got an answer. It was… “Someone could be using your mail server to send out e-mail.” REALLY? They want me to send a copy of the E-mail, inculding header… If I had that, I would already KNOW who was Hijacking my E-mail, right?
In the middle of writing this I got a confirmation from them that they need a copy of the E-mail!?! I don’t have a copy of the email… Stay Tuned.
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Hi there. Every email you receive has headers in it. With Outlook Express all you do is open the email, click file, properties, details then message source. The information in there is what your host needs or if you contact me, I can help you as I do this sort of thing for my day job.
Input by seanrox | September 19, 2006 @ 9:33 pm
I also recommend you remove your email address from your contact page and use the contact form plugin for word press which you can get from
Input by seanrox | September 19, 2006 @ 9:43 pm
Hey seanrox,
I’m not getting the email, I’m just getting the return notification. That’s why I can’t find the header.
As far as the email itself, I’m getting the notice on my mail admin, not regular email.
I think it is time to get a contact form like you suggest, I’ll probably do that tomorrow.
Thanks,
Joe
Input by Joe | September 19, 2006 @ 10:00 pm
I’ve had this happen to me tons of times… it’s spammers using your email address in the “reply-to” when they send out their crap.
Do you have any of your email accounts set up as a “catch all”? If so - disable that with your host. That alone will save you from receiving this stuff if and when people make up a user at your domain again.
Also - if your domain registration is public, go make it private. GoDaddy offers this service, so I’d assume other domain registrars do… this helps the whois scanners from seeing your domain as being one in existence to use.
When it happened to me, I was on the phone with South American countries, the Phillipines, and India. I was reaming people out like no tomorrow, and told them that if it didn’t stop, I’d get on a plane and say hello face to face.
I found out who they were by looking at the whois for the domains that were in the spam…
Funny how spammers think they’re so smart, yet don’t privatize their own domain registrations… LOL
Input by Anubis Marketing / Lara Kulpa | September 20, 2006 @ 4:43 pm
Hey Lara,
Thanks, they’re some very good tips. I did contact BlueHost and for what ever reason, I stopped getting the junk.
I hope that it’s something they did to help. Possibly.
Anyway, I’m going to put some of your tips into action.
Thanks again,
Joe
Input by Joe | September 20, 2006 @ 4:51 pm