Someone in China is using an address@my domain as a from address!

[Steve Prior <sp...@geekster.com>]

Over the last day I've been getting returned mails from AOL systems for invalid
addresses.  The problem is that some spammer in China made up a userid at
one of my domains and used that as the from address for those emails.  I can
live with what I hope is going to be a short run of "returned" emails, but
I'm more concerned about what this does for the image of that domain.  I'd be
even more concerned if the blacklists were still operational (who's existence
I was otherwise very happy with).

Is there anything I can/should do about this or just ride it out?

Steve

Re: Someone in China is using an address@my domain as a from address!

[Martin Hepworth <ma...@solid-state-logic.com>]

Steve

This is called a "Joe Job" and I'm sure there are a few links out on 
'net that will help in riding out the storm.

I know of serveral organisations that have been hit hard by this 
problem, so there should hopefully be a body of knowledge on handling to 
problem - once you get the correct nomenclature of course..

--
Martin Hepworth
Snr Systems Administrator
Solid State Logic
Tel: +44 (0)1865 842300


Steve Prior wrote:
> Over the last day I've been getting returned mails from AOL systems for 
> invalid
> addresses.  The problem is that some spammer in China made up a userid at
> one of my domains and used that as the from address for those emails.  I 
> can
> live with what I hope is going to be a short run of "returned" emails, but
> I'm more concerned about what this does for the image of that domain.  
> I'd be
> even more concerned if the blacklists were still operational (who's 
> existence
> I was otherwise very happy with).
> 
> Is there anything I can/should do about this or just ride it out?
> 
> Steve
> 

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Re: Someone in China is using an address@my domain as a from address!

["Keith C. Ivey" <kc...@cpcug.org>]

Steve Prior <sp...@geekster.com> wrote:

> Over the last day I've been getting returned mails from AOL systems for invalid
> addresses.  The problem is that some spammer in China made up a userid at
> one of my domains and used that as the from address for those emails.  I can
> live with what I hope is going to be a short run of "returned" emails, but
> I'm more concerned about what this does for the image of that domain.  I'd be
> even more concerned if the blacklists were still operational (who's existence
> I was otherwise very happy with).

The people who run blocklists (at least those anyone pays 
attention to) are smart enough to understand that e-mail 
forgery is easy.  The lists are based on the IP addresses the 
mail actually comes from, not the meaningless "From:" lines.

The bounces are annoying, but I don't think you need to worry 
about your reputation.  It happens to everyone.

-- 
Keith C. Ivey <kc...@cpcug.org>
Washington, DC