spam or virus?

[low_delta]

You know how you can get an e-mail that appears as though it came from you? You know, how the spammers set it up so your e-mail address appears as the sender's address?

What happens if that message is also sent to someone else, and that address doesn't exist? Will you get the bounced message?

I got a message from a mailer daemon saying, "so-and-so does not exist." It had a couple of attachments which I will not open. My question: Was this (a) failed spam, (b) very tricky spam or (c) a very tricky virus?


I also had two e-mail responses from hotmail's anti-spam service. One said my query was inadequate because I didn't include the full e-mail with headers. The other explained a bunch about their spam policies. I have no idea why I got that. It was regarding a spam message, with a subject line I don't recall seeing.

Comments

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

We got something similar at work yesterday. Terry dumped them without opening them.. then started yelling about people using the computer for porn. *cough* The only porn I have seen on that computer.. came through the email for HIM.. of course the boys then played with it....

I am sorry for your situation right now. I hope you can get through it with a minimum of stress.

[dwivian]

These virii are infecting computers, opening their address books, and picking an address at pseudorandom to be the "From" address....

So, when the mail is sent, it looks like it came from you. If it bounces, the bounce report goes to you. If it is blocked for containing a virus, poorly configured software will send YOU the note saying "fix yourself". And, some companies may take punative action against accounts seen as compromised, even when those accounts are guilty only of being in someone's address book.

Just delete, and dump.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

So this likely came from someone else who was infected, and it was bounced back to me?

[dwivian]

Yup! Ain't that fun?

[aki-dreaming.livejournal.com]

I don't know. My virus arrived in an e-mail claiming to be from "admin@" my webpage. Yeah, right. I have no idea how this thing works. I just don't open shit.

[nephychu.livejournal.com]

I just got hit by a spambomb of 50 virus-loaded emails today (disguised as screen savers, adobe acrobat files, movie files, etc) and the final two were different from the rest:

One was a bounceback saying that I had mailed someone from my applepaste address with a virus-infected mail.  Except that never happened; my system checks out as clean, so someone managed to spoof my email address (although not my IP).

The other was a "virus report" email that linked to a "virus information" website, which in actuality was a malicious site containing internet explorer security loophole exploits designed to compromise my system's file permissions / etc.

It's too bad the people responsible for these stupid scams can't be held responsible & flayed alive for causing so much lameness.