Suspicious Emails

[Guest Tracker]

We are getting a number of dodgy looking emails of late.

 

They appear as an email from a person unknown to us, always a different name and always with a four letter title such as HGTY or UMJU or similar and always with an attachment or a link.

 

We NEVER open them in OE but I do sometimes have a peek inside the body of the message using the properties clipboard and they nearly always seem to have a Yahoo sourced email address.

 

We NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES open either the email in OE or the attachment but I do just wonder if anyone else gets these, or if anyone knows what they are, or where they come from, or how to stop them arriving as no two seem to be from the same person or address.

 

As the sender's names seem to be random, the real risk is that sooner or later we will get one from a name that we recognise (albeit a false name) and in a format that fools us into opening it.

 

Any thoughts from you computer whizz kids out there please!

[AliB]

The're from NS&I telling you how much you have won on the Premium Bonds.

 

Either that or some nobody has got your email address and added it to their database. They then send "cloned" emails , that appear to come from you to other people. The attachment could contain an exe file which if opened will install something nasty on your PC. Opening the body of the text should nit cause a problem but never open the attachment. Good virus checking programs like Mcafee or AVG Free will warn you if attachments are dodgy.

If you are not running virus checker I suggest you start doing so immediately.

[duetto owner]

if you use vista mail you can block the domain that is sending them or if on gmail add them to the spam folder.

[spospe]

All PC's should be running Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware programs as a matter of course and I seem to remember that Tracker does indeed have a set installed on his PC.

 

My ISP (BT Internet) has a SPAM filter, which can be trained to recognise rubbish that is not wanted and will automatically put it into a 'sin-bin'.

 

What I do with suspect email, is to examine it using Webmail, rather than initially downloading it to OE and then deciding what to do with it.

 

It is extraordinarily difficult for a private individual to trace these emails back to source, but you could try returning them to the originating ISP and the following link details how:

 

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=viWQL_NFC9EC&pg=PT235&lpg=PT235&dq=returning+email+to+isp&source=bl&ots=R4lMwnfRLX&sig=udnUygr1YOx5z7AkY9eJYpng2ko&hl=en&ei=yWuFSrSNIZShjAfP8LSiCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6#v=onepage&q=&f=false

 

[Guest Tracker]

Agreed Michael but a friend once told me never to send spam or suspicious stuff back to it's originator as all it does is give them a known email address which makes them send even more in the hope that one will break through sooner or later because they now know that they have your attention and that you are actually getting this crud and looking at it?

[spospe]

Rich

 

You have slightly misunderstood me. Do not sent the email back to the spammer, send it instead to their ISP's nominated abuse representitive and ask them to deal with the matter. If you follow the link I posted, all will become clear(er).

[Guest Tracker]

Apologies Michael!