|
 |
Perceived spam: hacking
|
It can be very worrying if you have received Spam that includes your own account name in the header field.
Your first suspicion may be that someone has hacked into your account in order to send you mail – or worse, in order to send other people e-mail that is allegedly from you.
What has probably happened is that an unscrupulous company or an individual has been using a bulk mail programme to forge headers on to a particular e-mail message. The reason for going to these lengths is that it makes the e-mail appear to be authentic (and therefore people will open it) and it can also result in the item of mail bypassing some of the Hotmail filters.
Some of the forgeries add the recipient’s e-mail address (your address) or (your) account name into the header to try and make it appear more authentic.
It is offensive, and Hotmail is constantly trying to stamp out these practises. But first, rest assured that it is unlikely that anyone has broken in to your account; or sent you a computer virus; and it is also unlikely that your account has been used to send e-mail to other users.
We have actively pursued legal action against many individuals who forge addresses from the Hotmail domain and will continue to do so.
If you wish to help us in this campaign please report the mail to us.
Click here for a visual guide to reporting Junk Mail
 Back to Spambuster home |
|
