Is my email compromised?

[Greencardman]

I'm getting spam emailed from my own address. Its not appearing in my sent folder, but it appears to have come from me. Does this mean some hacker has my password, or is it just some spammer faking my address to send spam to me? Is there any way to tell? Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
Tom

P.S.
Is my school's webmail, I think its MS Exchange 2000.

 

[Westside guy]

No, your machine is likely fine. This is a gimmick that some spammers use to help them get around spam filters.

It is unbelievably easy to forge an e-mail header; so e-mail can look like it comes from most anyone.

 

[Simon Liquid]

something that happened to me once

About a year ago I started getting a lot of bounced messages from hotmail. Some spammer was putting my address in the header and hosing hotmail's servers with it. I think they were just using it at random though, it stopped after I got a couple of hundred bounced emails in 2 days and hasn't happened since.

 

[Greencardman]

Thanks

Hey, thanks for the response. Hopefully it'll stop soon. And hopefully without getting hundreds of bounced messages like your case. Goodness that must have sucked. Can't imagine getting that many emails. Did you have a filter, or did you have to delete them all manually?

 

[idkew]

you can try looking around your school's web site (or calling IT) and finding thier security/spam page. email thier security/spam address and they may be able to ban the offening person from send spam by looking closely at the mail header....

i am not POSITIVE about this, but what could it hurt, besides taking 10 minutes of your time?

 

[andyduncan]

Originally posted by idkew
you can try looking around your school's web site (or calling IT)...

i am not POSITIVE about this, but what could it hurt, besides taking 10 minutes of your time?

well, if that school's IT dept is anything like ours was: a cattle prod to the nostrils would be more pleasant by far.

Apple's spam filter is usually pretty good about not just looking at the "from" field, in fact, i'm beginning to think it doesnt look there at all, so if you keep telling it those mails are junk, it should learn eventually.

good spam filter. <tummy rub>

 

[rainman::|:|]

This is very common. To the point that I've heard experts advise people to block their own email address-- it can, for some people, filter a good chunk of spam.

Of course, it also prevents you from emailing yourself, which is something i do too much... works better than stickie notes at getting me to remember something...

paul

 

[Westside guy]

... Of course, it also prevents you from emailing yourself, which is something i do too much... works better than stickie notes at getting me to remember something...

I Bcc myself on every e-mail I send, as a self-defense measure. I'd had numerous problems with my boss "not getting" my e-mail - at least, according to him. When I'd forward him the original out of my sent-mail folder he'd just say "well that doesn't mean it went out; you've probably got your outgoing e-mail set up wrong" (which most definitely was not the case)

Bcc'ing myself lets me show him the e-mail header trail and prove it's went through. I only had to show him this once; since then, none of my e-mail to him has gotten lost anymore. But I'm not gonna stop Bcc'ing myself...