Email Spoofing or "Why did I receive an undeliverable notice for a message that I never sent?"

Why did I receive an undeliverable notice for a message that I never sent, and from a person that I do not know?

If you receive  an UNDELIVERABLE email that you did not send, you are the victim of "Email Spoofing."  Email spoofing exists when a  user receives email that appears to have originated from one source when it actually was sent from another source. In short, your email address was forged. You did not send it, but it was sent from another computer that has your email address.

Most  UNDELIVERABLE emails are sent by computers infected with email-type viruses, such as the KLEZ virus.   These viruses infect computers that do not have virus protection. Once the computer is infected, these viruses scan the address book and the inbox of the infected machine gathering email addresses.  After gathering email addresses, the virus generates virus-infected email messages, randomly putting the harvested addresses that it found during its scan into the  TO: and FROM: fields of bogus emails.  The email may also contain a copy of the virus disguised as an attachment.  These viruses act as an SMTP server, that is, they send these emails out when the infected computer is online. These email viruses are smart enough not  to use the actual email address of the infected computer.

It is very likely that someone who has your email address on their computer got an email-spoofing virus and placed your email address into the FROM field of the bogus email. If the email bounces back, that is, if it is rejected by a receiving email server, it is sent back to your email address rather than to the computer from which it originated.

The following is a list of email viruses which work in this fashion:
W32.Bugbear@mm
W32.Klez.gen@mm
W32.Klez.E@mm
W32.Klez.H@mm
W32.Yaha@mm
W32.Yaha.C@mm
W32.Yaha.E@mm
W32.Yaha.F@mm
W32.HLLW.Fizzer@mm
W32.Sobig

Unfortunately, we cannot block these kind of returned UNDELIVERABLE  emails.  If you are inundated by these emails, the only real solution is to change your email address and start using Prefix Mail Aliases when registering your address on questionable web sites or posting to public forums.  Please note that some of these viruses will stop working after a certain amount of time, and if the infected computer system obtains virus software it is likely the virus will be caught and purged. 

If you receive just a few of these types of emails, it is probably best to run a full system virus scan on your computer with up-to-date virus software such as Norton or McAfee.  Then just delete these UNDELIVERABLE emails.  If, however, you receive too many to deal with, please call our technical support number to request an email name change.