Problem with me (not) sending spam emails

[Ian J]

Yesterday I received over 5,000 emails from various postmasters saying that my email hadn't reached it's destination for various reasons including the fact that it included a virus.

Today I have just fired up my computer to find a further 6,000 emails saying exactly the same.

Am I right in thinking that I won't be penalised as my email address has just been spoofed and nothing has actually come from my IP address

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Something that I had here a few years ago and within about 48 hours it all stopped

 

[ukwebhosting]

Yesterday I received over 5,000 emails from various postmasters saying that my email hadn't reached it's destination for various reasons including the fact that it included a virus.

Today I have just fired up my computer to find a further 6,000 emails saying exactly the same.

Am I right in thinking that I won't be penalised as my email address has just been spoofed and nothing has actually come from my IP address

Hi

There is a high chance that your password may be compromised.

It can be someone spoofing but your password being compromised is the usual suspect.

I would recommend speaking to your email host and changing it as a precaution.

In addition ask your host if you have an spf record and if it is correct as that can help with people spoofing your email address as can a dkim and dmarc record.

Your email host will be able to sort all that for you and also tell you if the email was coming from your actual email account.

 

[Ian J]

It can be someone spoofing but your password being compromised is the usual suspect.

I have asked the host to look at your post as I'm not technical but it does seem that my password was compromised as 15 million emails were sent from my account and the spam filter contained 33,000 emails from hosts saying that my email was undeliverable.

Oh joy

 

[ukwebhosting]

I have asked the host to look at your post as I'm not technical but it does seem that my password was compromised as 15 million emails were sent from my account and the spam filter contained 33,000 emails from hosts saying that my email was undeliverable.

Oh joy

Without any kind of restriction that's surprisingly not a lot.

Ask them if they can restrict the hourly amount sent from your domain to say 200 if you would say you don't send more than that an hour.

That way the worst that could happen is 200 an hour go out and the rest get rejected.

Gives you more of a chance to see a bounce and act before 15 million have gone out.

Unless they use an outbound mail filtering solution (for example https://www.mailchannels.com/email-delivery/ ) then that server IP will almost certainly be blacklisted shortly if that is what they use for outbound mail.

 

[Ozzy]

If you use that password for anything else, go change it for everything you use it for. It wouldn't be a bad idea to change all passwords generally.

I'd also suggest setting up 2FA (two factor authentication / multi factor authentication) on everything that supports it. For example this site allows you to use it so if you log in here you need to verify it is you before you get access to your account using something like Authy or an email confirmation.

 

[Deleted member 360015]

I would investigate setting up DMARC for your domain. If you are in Google or Microsoft, you can find handy guides online that will lead you step by step.

 

[Russ Michaels]

if your email is being spoofed then this means you have not setup email authentication (SPF, DKIm and DMARC). So you need to do that.
You can find more eon these topics at https://domainadmintools.com/blog/

I would also suggest using an email provider that has 2 factor authentication on the email to keep it secure.
this include M365, Google Workspace and FastMail.
I recommend fastmail if you want the cheapest solution and don;t need all the other services.

 

[transcom]

you could run your domain / email through a filtering service such as :
Mailcleaner Plus

 

[Russ Michaels]

Yesterday I received over 5,000 emails from various postmasters saying that my email hadn't reached it's destination for various reasons including the fact that it included a virus.

Today I have just fired up my computer to find a further 6,000 emails saying exactly the same.

Am I right in thinking that I won't be penalised as my email address has just been spoofed and nothing has actually come from my IP address

Yes this will damage your reputation and get your domain blacklisted.
You need to setup your email authentication (SPF, dkim, dmarc) in order to stop your domain being abused by spammers and scammers.

You can read more about this here

#1 Email Authentication & Managed Dmarc Services in Thanet

Google and Yahoo are turning what was once considered best practices for email authentication into mandatory requirements. Senders who don’t comply with the

kentwebservices.uk

You can also find some useful articles at https://domainadmintools.com/blog/

 

[Russ Michaels]

You need to setup email authentication to stop your domain being abused.
You can rest more about trust here.

You can also find some good stickers on dkim, SPF and dmarc at Https://domainadmintools.com/blog