# Email spoofing spam **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 12, 2019, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-spoofing-spam/838561 "2019-08-12T16:49:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mislav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mislav](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mislav)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-spoofing-spam/838561/1 "2019-08-12T16:49:39Z")
I recently received a “Delivery failed” email saying that the message sent from my email address couldn’t be delivered to a recipient. However, I never tried sending that email from my account. I checked the “Sent” folder. There were no records of it there. Nothing in the trash folder either. I scanned my phone and computer for viruses. Nothing. I did some research and found out this could be the case of email spoofing: > **[Email spoofing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spoofing)** > > Email spoofing is the creation of email messages with a forged sender address. The term applies to email purporting to be from an address which is not actually the sender's; mail sent in reply to that address may bounce or be delivered to an unrelated party whose identity has been faked. Disposable email address or "masked" email is a different topic, providing a masked email address that is not the user's normal address, which is not disclosed (for example, so that it cannot be harvested), bu Th... Some people have talked about it on Reddit and Straight Dope: > **[r/LiveOverflow - Spoofed spam email from myself?](https://www.reddit.com/r/LiveOverflow/comments/9yl9a2/spoofed_spam_email_from_myself/)** > > 19 votes and 11 comments so far on Reddit > **[r/ProtonMail - I got a spam email from a spoofed version of my address (?)](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/9qpuxt/i_got_a_spam_email_from_a_spoofed_version_of_my/)** > > 3 votes and 5 comments so far on Reddit [https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=859036](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=859036) Is that dangerous? Will my e-mail be tagged as spam? Can something be done about that? I only received one of those “Delivery failed” messages so far. I tagged the message as Spam and then deleted it. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-spoofing-spam/838561/2 "2019-08-12T17:07:46Z")
Naw, chances are that it was set up that way specifically to trick you into thinking you sent the original message. It gives it a false veneer of legitimacy. It’s unlikely to spread from there or have any other consequences. While email spoofing is a thing, you’re unlikely to be specifically used as the spoofed sender for messages being sent to others, because what advantage would that give a spammer? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-spoofing-spam/838561/3 "2019-08-12T17:14:39Z")
Just delete it and move on. Yes, it’s very possible it’s a trick, hoping to get you to click on a link (or even just to get something to load when you open the email). It’s also possible an email was sent with your name as the sender, so it bounced back to your email address. IME, when that happens, it’s not usually a few, it’s thousands or 10’s of thousands of emails bouncing back to you. In either case, if you didn’t send it, don’t give it too much thought. Having said all that, if failed deliveries are to people you know, you may want to change your password. ---
**Author:** ![Mislav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mislav](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mislav)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-spoofing-spam/838561/4 "2019-08-12T17:51:45Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Just delete it and move on. Yes, it’s very possible it’s a trick, hoping to get you to click on a link (or even just to get something to load when you open the email). It’s also possible an email was sent with your name as the sender, so it bounced back to your email address. IME, when that happens, it’s not usually a few, it’s thousands or 10’s of thousands of emails bouncing back to you. > > In either case, if you didn’t send it, don’t give it too much thought. > > Having said all that, if failed deliveries are to people you know, you may want to change your password. Thank you for the replies. No, I haven’t received any “Delivery failed” messages about the people I know. The only “Delivery failed” message I have received said that I tried sending an email to some weird e-mail address I’ve never seen before. I was just worried that others may receive spam with my email address in the header and report it as spam, and that that could result in my account being blacklisted or something, since it would appear that I’ve been sending spam. But I never heard of that happening with email spoofing spam. Should I report that spam somewhere? Or change my password? I have only received one “Delivery failed” email. I haven’t noticed anything weird in “Sent” or “Trash” folder, no missing emails from my inbox. I don’t have any problems logging in my email account. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-spoofing-spam/838561/5 "2019-08-12T18:12:00Z")
If the failed deliveries are to people you know, then you want to tell all of your friends (or at least, people in that particular circle of friends) to check _their_ security. One plausible scenario is that malware got on someone else’s machine, and the malware then scraped up a list of e-mail addresses from that machine, and used one of them as the “from” line and sent it out to all the rest of them. Just a reminder: E-mail “from” lines and caller ID identification have the same security as the return address up in the corner of an envelope: That is to say, none. I could write anything I wanted in the corner of an envelope, and I could put anything I wanted in as the from line of an e-mail. Nobody who got a mysterious envelope in their mailbox with their address in the upper left and a big red “Insufficient Postage” stamp over it would think that someone had stealthily taken over control of their mailbox, or had the keys to their house. What happened to you is just like that. ---
**Author:** ![Mislav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mislav](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mislav)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-spoofing-spam/838561/6 "2019-08-12T18:59:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If the failed deliveries are to people you know, then you want to tell all of your friends (or at least, people in that particular circle of friends) to check _their_ security. One plausible scenario is that malware got on someone else’s machine, and the malware then scraped up a list of e-mail addresses from that machine, and used one of them as the “from” line and sent it out to all the rest of them. > > Just a reminder: E-mail “from” lines and caller ID identification have the same security as the return address up in the corner of an envelope: That is to say, none. I could write anything I wanted in the corner of an envelope, and I could put anything I wanted in as the from line of an e-mail. Nobody who got a mysterious envelope in their mailbox with their address in the upper left and a big red “Insufficient Postage” stamp over it would think that someone had stealthily taken over control of their mailbox, or had the keys to their house. What happened to you is just like that. Thank you for the reply. None of the failed deliveries are to the people I know. Actually, I have only received one Delivery failed e-mail. ---
**Author:** ![Mislav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mislav](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mislav)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-spoofing-spam/838561/7 "2019-08-13T07:29:12Z")
OK, I’m really worried now. I tried logging into my account today. The notification said that there has been some irregular activity related to my account and that I should change my password. I did, and everything seems to be working fine now. But I’m really worried. Has my email account been hacked? Or have they noticed spam being sent from my (spoofed) email and wanted me to take precaution? Once I logged into my account with a new password I noticed I’ve received three more “Delivery failed” messages. None from the people I know, and none of them are in my “Sent” folder. ---
**Author:** ![Mislav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mislav](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mislav)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-spoofing-spam/838561/8 "2019-08-13T12:32:27Z")
Any advice? ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-spoofing-spam/838561/9 "2019-08-13T21:08:05Z")
The spam might be targeted at you. Are there suspicious links in it? The spammer might be trying to get around your own spam filter by using a [backscatter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_(email)) attack. You might be more likely to click on links in an email you think you forgot that you sent. You’ve changed your password, that’s probably the best thing at the moment. I’d tell your mail provider about this, create a custom spam filter, and forget about it. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/email-spoofing-spam/838561/10 "2019-08-13T22:15:33Z")
It’s happened to me a couple times that I get a slew (dozens) of such messages all in a row. My assumption is that some spammer is sending emails, presumably phishing, spoofing my email address. Nowadays, spammers don’t want a reply; they want you to click on a link. Just delete them.