strange e-mails

[welton]

I'm startint to get e-mails from people saying that they
are kicking back a message that I never sent, Is someone
using my e-mail address as thier own? If so what can I do
about it? This is the latest message from a large
insurance company that I never contacted:

Sorry, but this message was not delivered to the person
you tried to send it to. CIGNA policy restricts the
delivery of executable attachments into our network.

If the executable attachment you wanted to send is
necessary to complete a CIGNA business transaction,
please contact your intended recipient.
That person must then work with CIGNA's Information
Protection staff to ensure the safe receipt of your
attachment.

If you have a recurring business need to e-mail
executable attachments to CIGNA, please let your intended
recipients know. They must then request an exception
approval from their CIGNA Division Security
Officer.

Thank you for your cooperation.

 

[Ben M. Schorr, MVP-OneNote]

I'm startint to get e-mails from people saying that they are kicking
back a message that I never sent, Is someone using my e-mail address as
thier own? If so what can I do about it? This is the latest message
from a large insurance company that I never contacted:

Some virus or spammer is spoofing your address as their from address.
Very common and nothing you can do about it (unless you can conclusively
determine who did it).
Sorry. :-(

 

[Operations]

Hello Welton. Although the risk of someone impersonating you by using your
account does exist, the most likely cause of the bounced messages you're
getting is a virus.
You see, modern virii harvest mail addresses from their host computers and
then use them to spread themselves masquerading behind names that people
know, as follows:

Let's say my computer is infected with the SuperVirus and my address book
has both your email and the one from the insurance company, now, the
supervirus is going to reproduce itself by sending its body to the insurance
company, but, and here's the catch, its going to present itself as coming
from your email address (even though it's being sent by my computer)...so
the receiveng mail server rejects the message to you, because that's the
reported return path, but as you can see, you have nothing to do with it,
since I'm the one infected.

Annoying as it is, I think there's little you can do to prevent this from
happening, except perhaps insure that you yourself do not get infected, by
using current virus protection and a firewall, stay current with operating
system updates and never opening suspicious incoming messages.

Good luck.