E-mail dangerously and mysteriously sent to addressee not specified.

[Brian Smither]

My boss has a very dangerous situation: regularly she sends a message to a
collection of individuals, each address is in the To: field BUT...

This message will also, on the rare occasion (like yesterday), also get
sent to someone whose address appears NOWHERE in the To:, From:, CC:, BCC
fields or anywhere else! This has happened three times before in the past
six months or so.

She uses Outlook 2000 (probably SP1a) on Windows 2000 Pro (SP4), with
Symantec NAV2003 scanning outgoing messages. She e-mails the officers of
the company and other business contacts like telemarketers use the phone:
that is, all day long, all week long. Outlook is holding up reasonably
well.

But this rare occurance is way dangerous. One extremely sensitive e-mail
UNKNOWINGLY getting sent to an unintended person... jeez.

In the past occasions, I have found an illegal e-mail address in an entry
in her Contacts folder. But I do not have the means to perform an
exhaustive test to see if this is the situation that allows this bug to
trigger.

Yesterday, my boss said she recalled having an e-mail waiting in the
Outbox. (Undeliverable due to some unknown reason, I guess. I have yet to
performed any sort of rudimentary forensics on Outlook as yet. Outlook is
set to send immediately.) Whether this delayed e-mail was destined for the
unintended recipient of the sensitive e-mail, I don't know.

Has anyone ever run across this type of situation? Either blamed on
Outlook, NAV, your ISP's e-mail server???

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

Are you using Exchange server? Is this unintended recipient inside or
outside your organization? Is the mail received directly by that person or
is an authorized recipient copying/forwarding the mail?

Have you scanned her system with an up to date AV scanner with current .dat
file definitions? Have you performed a spyware/adware scan? SpamBot is
good as is AdAware. Hijack This! is good for identifying running processes
but be careful to not be overzealous. Also, the Microsoft Antispyware beta
is a very good program. I would also check for keylogger software AND
hardware.


--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, Brian Smither asked:

| My boss has a very dangerous situation: regularly she sends a message
| to a collection of individuals, each address is in the To: field
| BUT...
|
| This message will also, on the rare occasion (like yesterday), also
| get sent to someone whose address appears NOWHERE in the To:, From:,
| CC:, BCC fields or anywhere else! This has happened three times
| before in the past six months or so.
|
| She uses Outlook 2000 (probably SP1a) on Windows 2000 Pro (SP4), with
| Symantec NAV2003 scanning outgoing messages. She e-mails the officers
| of the company and other business contacts like telemarketers use the
| phone: that is, all day long, all week long. Outlook is holding up
| reasonably well.
|
| But this rare occurance is way dangerous. One extremely sensitive
| e-mail UNKNOWINGLY getting sent to an unintended person... jeez.
|
| In the past occasions, I have found an illegal e-mail address in an
| entry in her Contacts folder. But I do not have the means to perform
| an exhaustive test to see if this is the situation that allows this
| bug to trigger.
|
| Yesterday, my boss said she recalled having an e-mail waiting in the
| Outbox. (Undeliverable due to some unknown reason, I guess. I have
| yet to performed any sort of rudimentary forensics on Outlook as yet.
| Outlook is set to send immediately.) Whether this delayed e-mail was
| destined for the unintended recipient of the sensitive e-mail, I
| don't know.
|
| Has anyone ever run across this type of situation? Either blamed on
| Outlook, NAV, your ISP's e-mail server???

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

What method do you suggest should be used to determine if the message is
intended for the people she puts in the To line? Why can't she (or won't
she) pay more attention to the addresses she chooses to send a message to?


--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



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