Mail Hijacking

[Summer]

I get a lot of spam. The curious thing is that when I send email to people I will get spam from people with similar names or subject matter of what I have sent out. How do these spammers get this info? Are they able to read my email? Should I be alarmed?

[MtnEagle]

Almost any email address now-a-days is subject to spam just by hit-or-miss tactics and dictionary efforts.

Another layer of issue is that even though you may be strict with the Anit-virus, anti-ad, anti-this-n-that software, this does not mean your friends on the contact list are.

These days, anyone in your circle who is lax on the security stuff will invariably get your email addres into a circle of undesirables simply by you being a contact in their address book.

:(

Golden rules still apply...

Virus scan, Ad-aware scans, etc and keep up to date on your definition files.

Don't open, and better yet delete immediatley anything you don't recognize and were not expecting.

Don't bother unsubscribing from mailing lists, rather just delete them and do not respond. In time they'll slow down if there is no response back from your address. This is important in NOT opening new mail that you don't recognize even if there is no attachment, since they may be using an image that will trigger a positive response that your email address is active regardless of you not replying.

Use your filters, but also remember that they are only so intelligent, sometimes things you want to receive end up in their bins.

:)