email from my cousin....

[PepperElf]

well this sucks.

Mom just got an email from my cousin with an advertisement in it... Only he passed away a couple of months ago.


Looks like someone hacked his email.

[LillFilly]

That's sad. And sad that it happens all the time; My friend's email has been sending me crazy stuff because of that. Maybe they should cancel it or change the password if they have access to it?

[Kitten in the box]

Even if you change the password they'll still ind a way to send you crap. My friend made 2 email accounts one for spam mail and one for his regular email. His spam mail he has to clean out 2x per month of regular spam, and his junk mail feet where he puts extra spam, and his garbage bin where even more extra spam
Goes.

[TheSHAD0W]

Is anyone using his old computer? It's likely his old passwords were stored on it, and the computer was recently infected with malware that extracted those passwords.

[Captain Trips]

Nah, it's nothing to do with him or his computer. It's called "spoofing" - and it is possible to change the "from" field from their name to your cousin's. Heck, I do this all the time at work, legitimately - when responding to our tech support inbox, I change the "From" to read "Technical Support."

The spoofer doesn't need access to your cousin's computer, just needs to pull the name of a mailing list they bought somewhere, and put it in the "from" field. And here's the real bitch: there's nothing you can really do about it other than delete it, as they have similar ways to hide their IP address.

[draco664]

Quoth PepperElf

Looks like someone hacked his email.

Not necessarily. The 'From' field in an email can be edited to show just about anything. If someone else has both your mother's email and your cousin's in their contact list, a spammer could send spam to the addresses in the list looking like they're from someone else in the list.

[PepperElf]

good point - it could be a spoof as well.

Quoth LillFilly

That's sad. And sad that it happens all the time; My friend's email has been sending me crazy stuff because of that. Maybe they should cancel it or change the password if they have access to it?

I don't know if his daughters had the password or not. Although I guess that's a possibility. He can't cancel it himself - or access it.. not unless God decides to let him have email in Heaven that is.

That's also why I periodically give my family the list of my passwords (well for accounts I want them to know about) should I pass away.

[Gizmo]

Quoth Captain Trips

The spoofer doesn't need access to your cousin's computer, just needs to pull the name of a mailing list they bought somewhere, and put it in the "from" field. And here's the real bitch: there's nothing you can really do about it other than delete it, as they have similar ways to hide their IP address.

Yes, our work one was spoofed and got us on a spam list. Just before Christmas we were getting automatic rejections from a good quarter of our contacts as they use the autofiltering and wouldn't even let our emails get to the point that someone at their end could manually approve them. Hopefully its sorted now!

[Dadeo]

My company's domain has been blacklisted twice - once by spamhaus and once by another blacklist server - because someone spoofed our email addresses. Don't know who (nor do I care) submitted us to the blacklist servers but I was a bit pissed off that, spamhaus especially, didn't bother to verify us as a legit server. It was a pain in the ass getting off those damned lists.

[Teskeria]

'Dear Cous,
It's wonderful to hear from you. I didn't realize you have internet in the afterlife. great to know. I am forwarding your email to the internet company to let them know how delighted I am in their afterlife service.
Love me.