Solving a spam problem from your own e-mail address

This guide explores the concepts of email address spoofing, spoofing, and spam that appears to originate from your own email address.

Has my account sent spam?
 

You may receive spam that seems to come from your own email address. Rest assured that this spam is intended only for you, and it will not be sent to your contacts from your email address. Your email account remains secure, and its integrity is not compromised in any way.

To reduce the presence of these messages in your inbox, check if your own email address is listed in the whitelist of your spam filter. If so, it is necessary to remove it from this list.

I'm receiving bulk sending errors
 

Spammers use various tactics to conceal the true source of their messages. They often modify the sender's address, either by creating it or by randomly selecting from existing address lists, making it difficult to trace the real origin of the message. Imagine anyone being able to impersonate you by sending a postal letter and indicating your address on the back of the envelope. Similarly, spammers can impersonate you by using your email address as the sender, aiming to bypass anti-spam filters and reach their target audience.

When you frequently receive error messages indicating the failure of the delivery of alleged spams, these messages may not have actually been sent from your account but have simply pretended to come from your email address.

These messages can be sent in two ways: either from inadequately secured mail servers exploited by spammers until the vulnerability is detected and fixed, or by Trojan horses infecting hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide. These computers, often referred to as "zombies," send messages almost automatically, unbeknownst to their owners, at the simple request of a spammer, following the principle of botnets.

Have I been hacked?

This does not mean that your account has been hacked, your email address has been stolen, or your identity has been impersonated. Instead, it is an attempt to bypass anti-spam security measures, called "mail forging" or email falsification. Unfortunately, Infomaniak and other hosting providers cannot do anything about this issue.

The only solution would be for all mail servers worldwide to be secure and require authentication for sending emails, which the ethical servers of Infomaniak do.

However, as long as all servers on the planet are not secure, "mail forging" will continue to be a persistent challenge.

Additional precautions
 

Ensure that no catchall-type address on your Mail Service is redirected to the overloaded email address, which could be the reason for an increase in undelivered email views.

The implementation of DMARC can help you analyze the usage of your email.