Security

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Strange e-mail message, do you know how?

0 helpful
3 replies

by thamakodi 1 view

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

Hi,
This my 1st post to TechRepublic.com ... and I need your expertise on the following issue.

I received an e-mail sent to my Yahoo! account from "Nobody" without a subject line, body text and the from field is blank. I clicked on reply to see if I'm missing something but still, the To: field is blank.

Could someone please explain how can this happen AND if I should worry that this message may be a result of a Virus infection in somebody's else's system which my email address name is listed in his personnel folder or ... IS IT AN ATTEMPT TO HACK MY YAHOO EMAIL ACCOUNT ... who knows what else might be sent back to the sender if S/He checked the Read Receipt tracking option.

Following is the message with full header...

-----------------
From Nobody Mon Sep 17 17:00:42 2001
X-Apparently-To: xxxxxx@yahoo.com via web13007.mail.yahoo.com; 17 Sep 2001 08:54:32 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from host213-122-5-27.btconnect.com (HELO oemcomputer) (213.122.5.27) by mta546.mail.yahoo.com with SMTP; 17 Sep 2001 08:54:29 -0700 (PDT)
From:
To: xxxxxxx@yahoo.com
Subject:
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:00:42
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/; charset="DEFAULT_CHARSET"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6700
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6700Content-Length: 0
----------------------------------------

I forwarded the message to feedback@yahoo.com, feedback@btconnect.com and abuse@btconnect.com ... for their information.

I also changed my password ... and I hope I'm not making a joke of myself.

Thanks in advance..

THK

3 replies

by mayurd

Some spammers and email abusers use a ghost mail programme that can hide their details.

by archon285

Apart from looking at an e-mail for an unknown source, you have done all the right things. The fact that the length of the message was 0 characters suggests you got all there was. It was probably an attempt at multiple spam e-mails that got blocked.

The main thing to beware of is opening an e-mail ATTACHMENT not the e-mail itself.

by ms

Answer what is that is quite easy.

You can forge such mail by entering example:

telnet typemailserverhere or IP 25
helo xxx
rcpt to: kurdith@yahoo.com
mail from:
data
text here
..
.

second sollution.
Some one is using exchange + qmail and it is missconfigured

This discussion is closed to new replies.