Outlook says sending messages but no messages

[charisma0004]

I have recently been having an issue with Outlook where in the bottom hand
corner it is saying sending message 1 of 21 or 49+
I have has a look in my outbox and sent messages and nothing is showing that
shouldn't be there.

Why is this suddenly started to happen?
I have scanned for spyware and viruses and nothing found

 

[VanguardLH]

I have recently been having an issue with Outlook where in the bottom hand
corner it is saying sending message 1 of 21 or 49+
I have has a look in my outbox and sent messages and nothing is showing that
shouldn't be there.

Why is this suddenly started to happen?
I have scanned for spyware and viruses and nothing found

Do you have the tracking option for read receipts configured to Always
send (or Prompt and you've been answering Yes)? Could be you have read
receipts stuck in your Outbox folder. Outlook will hide those so you
cannot use its GUI to delete them. If you have always had the read
receipt tracking option disabled (set to Never send) then it's probably
a different problem.

How many accounts do you have defined in Outlook? And WHICH version of
Outlook do you use? There is a defect in Outlook 2007 where it reports
sending N-1 e-mails where N is the number of accounts you have defined,
not the number of e-mails being sent. I don't know if that got fixed
yet.

 

[charisma0004]

I have not put the option on for read receipts so I never get anything like
that.

I have office 2003
I have about 6 accounts setup

Just a pain in the arse and unsure how to stop it doing it.
Thanks for any help

 

[Philip Cass]

I have not put the option on for read receipts so I never get anything
like that.

I have office 2003
I have about 6 accounts setup

Just a pain in the arse and unsure how to stop it doing it. Thanks for
any help

I am unsure whether this is related or not, but on Wednesday I got a
delivery failure email for an email I'd never sent.

This is not in itself unusual - almost all my spam is backscatter - but
this email was sent _from my own mail server_. Examining the logs on my
mail server I found that when I'd started up outlook, at the same time as
it logged into IMAP to check for new mail, there'd been a connection made
from my IP, using my username and password, to send about 8 emails.

That same day my friend noticed the same thing (we use the same server
for IMAP but I also use it for STMP whereas he has his own exchange
server set up) - his exchange server had logged outgoing emails from him.

Further experimentation using wireshark and tcpview has confirmed that it
is indeed Outlook sending the mails. The smtp details used correspond to
my default mail profile and if I set my default profile to a different
account the smtp credentials used by the spam change accordingly.

I'm embarrased to admit I didn't have an anti-virus installed at the time
(though I was using Windows Defender); in true barn-door-horse-bolted
style I've now installed McAfee VSE 8.5, which finds nothing. My friend
however did have an antivirus installed - Sophos, which also finds
nothing.

As a workaround I've firewalled my server so I can't actually connect via
SMTP (I'll use webmail for now) but this issue has us rather worried.
Obviously I can do a complete reformat / reinstall but in the absence of
any kind of information on how we've been compromised I'm reluctant to do
so. Hijack This! for instance shows nothing untoward.



Can anyone reccommend any useful diagnostic / troubleshooting tools for
this? Alternatively, if this issue would be best dealt with on another
group, can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks in advance,
Philip Cass

 

[Philip Cass]

On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:35:42 +0000, Philip Cass wrote:

<snip>


Aaargh, should probably mention, both me and my friend are running Vista
Business 64 and Office 07

 

[Gilbert T. Gutierrez, Jr.]

I am experiencing the same issue. I created another discussion in the
Outlook General Questions with the title "Possible Outlook Virus/Trojan".

Below is what I am seeing...
XP
Outlook 2007 (Using IMAP)
AVG 8.0 Network Edition

My computer seems to be originating spam via outlook. Below are a list of
symptoms...

1. When I open Outlook in the morning I will get several email bounce
messages with my computer, mail server information, and outlook version in
the original message header with the content being some form of volgar
message.
2. If I access my email through the web interface of my mail server, I do
not get any of the bounce backs.
3. If I change my SMTP mail server to localhost in Outlook before opening
Outlook, Send and Receive tells me it cannot send 6 messages even though
there are no messages in the outbox.
4. This "virus/trojan" only generates mail once during the day (when Outlook
is first powered on). If Outlook is closed after the initial send and the
hidden messages are sent, the virus will not attempt to send or generate any
more messages that are not in the outbox. It seems that the virus has a
clock associated with it as well as a trigger of Outlook opening.

I have tried a couple online virus scanners along with Malwarebytes'
Anti-Malware and the upto date copy of AVG. Nothing seems to catch the
problem. This issue has been occuring for a week or 2 and AVG support is
telling me they are seeing nothing wrong (I am still arguing back and forth
with them (They seem to be supporting their product from Serbia based on the
person's name and the email conversation is one email every 24 to 48 hours).