E-Mail Address Hijacked
After a good post and discussion by Kheldar regarding use of pseudomyms onlne instead of actual names - for privacy/security purposes - I decided that I'd come here to ask a question that I asked my ISP, with no useful answer.
In the past, I have had my e-mail adddress - actually at work at PNNL, not at home - hijacked and used by somebody to send SPAM. At the time, I was told by the lab Info Systems guys that there wasn't anything I could do about it. So, I just ignored it and eventually, it apparently went away. In any case, I retired, so that e-mail address is no longer!
Now, my address at home has been hijacked and I am getting a stream of sexual SPAM messages, which undoubtedly lots of people are getting, coming from my address. This is why I generally use my alternative Hotmail address for online stuff, except when it seems necessary and prudent to use my normal one. Apparently, I missed one that should have been the Hotmail account - I am suspicious of Steam since it started about the time I started my Steam account, or at least when I bought games from them, though I don't recall for sure if I used my normal address or Hotmail address.
Does anybody else experience this, and if so, what do you do? I know prevention is the answer, but I know that some of you, like Kheldar, are way more active online than I am, so you must have some tricks that I don't know.
Can it be stopped in any way short of changing e-mail addresses? If not, how can I prevent it from happening again?
At least I use Mailwasher to view e-mail on the server as a text snippet with address info before downloading the message, so I can delete it there. I also usually bounce any SPAM, but am thinking about stopping that as I'm not sure it accomplishes anything other than adding to the net traffic load.
Thoughts and comments - and especially solutions - highly welcome!
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Re: E-Mail Address Hijacked
Actually, there may be one really simple way. Assuming that you never send mail to yourself (which is not always true... at work for example, I send to a mail group sometimes which includes me, or I might want to CC myself on a message), then you can set up a mail rule (either in your mail client, or with your ISP if they support it) to delete all messages from your email address. You could make it more specific to delete any from your address to only your address. This allows you to mail someone else and still CC yourself.
Oh, and I really doubt steam is the cause. There are too many tech savvy people who use steam that would be up in arms if such an issue were detected. Valve has a very above-board reputation with regards to email.
Frankly, these days it's too easy for spammers to get their hands on your address despite trying to avoid making your address public. It's unfortunate, but usually adding a mail rule can catch the majority when a new wave starts hitting your inbox.
Although, some of the email captions really crack me up: "a luger of love is achievable".
Really. I'm not making that up!
Re: E-Mail Address Hijacked
Yes, I already have a rule that flags anything from my address, but I don't automatically delete, just so I can make sure. But, you're right...I can set it up to automatically delete if I set it for from myself to ONLY myself.
I do my rules in Mailwasher, so can check all before telling it to delete.
Re: E-Mail Address Hijacked
I have at least one account that is spammed a lot but I don't use it anymore so it doesn't bother me. I check it once or twice a month just to clean it out but I don't think anybody has it anymore cause I haven't received any legitamate emails in a while.
My current main email address is hotmail and they do a good job filtering. I'm constantly seeing those type messages in my junk mail there but they usually don't make it to my inbox.
As far as whether my email address is being used to spam others I don't know, I never really investigated that aspect.