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Hey guys an girls

I went to read my email the other day and I had lots of PostmasterFaild things in my inbox? It was as if someone had tried to email everyone on my contacts list and some failed hence the reply email saying postFailure. Any ideas? What should I do?

Hotmail? If so the same thing happened to me about 4 years ago.

Hotmail will deny it's them thats been hacked (despite the number of people this has happened to), and will advice that you change your password and security questions. I did just that and it hasn't happened since. (I only really use my hotmail account for MSN these days though.)

If some other webmail account, change your password and security questions.

If it's an account that you collect via Outlook et al you should still change your password, but give your computer a quick virus and malware scan first.

Yer it is hotmail. Dammit! Thanks

Don't add any contacts that you dont know are genuine or accept any invitations from MSN messenger that you dont recognise, as that maybe the way they exploit your email. I always look for a personal message to acompany the invitation on MSN.

I tend to get about 1 or 2 a week invitations to accept people on msn or hotmail contacts. I don't know them so get blocked and reported as spam.

Read somewhere that they hack the email addresses of forwarded emails which have big address lists on. I keep getting viagra adverts because of this scam. Anyone who hacks and gets caught should take the consequences, including that supposed sufferer of some bloody syndrome or other, just thinks he's being clever the b.....d

The SMTP protocol (that email uses) is a load of bollocks and it's very easy to spoof email addresses. The emails you have may not have anything to do with them being sent from your hotmail account.

Over 90% of email is SPAM and stopping SPAM is a black art. No one product stops all SPAM emails and some will always get through. SPAM filters that ISPs and other organisations use do update and in time will stop most KNOWN SPAM.

The thing is most of us get the odd (chain) email that is passed on from hundreds of other recipients. If you are going to forward an email make sure you delete all the other email adresses at the top and use the BCC field on the new email so as not to pass on those adresses, that way you will reduce the risk of spam.

There are a many ways people can find your email address. Filling in online forms and not ticking the opt-out boxes, through tools like TEC (target email collector), directory harvest attacks and compromised marketing databases to name but a few.

This isn't the standard spam email from a spoofed address though...

This is spam being sent to your contacts list, and only your contacts list, "from" your email address.

The ways you generally find out are if you have another email address that the message is sent to, if the email bounces-back (flagged as spam, address doesn't exist etc) or if someone replys for whatever reason.

It is so easy to spoof email, you can make it appear to come from wherever you like. Viruses that infect the local PC can get a list of contacts from the likes of an installed MSN messenger or Outlook and send email through their own SMTP engine.

The only true way to know if an email has been sent or received is to look at the message tracking logs of a Mail Exchange Agents (e.g. MS Exchange or whatever the ISPs use).

You can use telnet to easily send a test message from your command prompt: e.g.

telnet mail.ntlworld.com 25
EHLO test.com
Mail from:[email protected]
RCPT TO: [email protected]
DATA
HELLO WORLD.

I know it's easy enough to spoof email addresses. Over the years, I've received several from "myself" on the yahoo account I use for signing-up to websites and newsletters.

However, at the time this effected me I had never used MSN nor an email client (for hotmail at least). A quick search on Lycos (thats how far back we're talking ) showed several people in the same position - No MSN, no Outlook and a negative virus scan using a variety of AV software, all sending emails to a video site (that presumably asked you to install a fake codec that also installed a virus).

Anyway, as you hinted, vigilance is key: spam filters, using 'disposable' email accounts that don't contain your main address book for e-newsletters, shopping etc and keeping your antivirus, windows, messanger and other softwares up-to-date.

Directly hacking email systems isn't too easy. One of the most common forms of attack is through the likes of key logging software like keyboard spy etc. This doesn't have to be on your home pc, but any other computer you logon to your webmail from.

This is where strong authentication plays a part. Using the likes of the keyfobs or a smart cards that will ensure that key logging wouldn't be of much use.

Banks and other "stronger" systems can ask you a question at random "please type in characters 3,5 and 7 of your secret phase". This helps circumvent phising and key logging.

I've removed some pretty clever software over they years that records key logging and screen images. Some of it was marketed to catch cheating partners playing on dating sites!

Well I changed the password but people are still getting emails from me and I have had a few postfailure replys.

My friend asked me why I emailed them about Viagra?? WTF!

Have you scanned your pc for spyware?