There are some tips that will help protect you, but spammers will probably find your email address eventually. The easiest way for spammers to collect large lists of good, active email addresses is via leaked account databases. These password leaks happen with frightening regularity. These leaked databases are normally considered a security threat because they often show account names and passwords. However, they generally show email addresses, too. Spammers can download these leaked databases and add the millions of email addresses to their email lists.
Spammers know that the majority of these email addresses should be active, so these databases are excellent for them. This is likely the way most spammers are currently finding email addresses to spam.
A site like Have I been pwned? You can protect yourself from password leaks by not re-using the same password everywhere , but you practically have to re-use the same email address everywhere. If you do get spam emails, you should avoid clicking links in the email. The same goes for loading images in spam emails. Spammers have traditionally harvested email addresses by scraping the web — kind of like Google does — and look for email addresses mentioned on websites.
The spammer would then add this address to their spam lists. This is why Craigslist provides a temporary email address where you can be reached rather than including your real email address. This technique is probably less common now that spammers have such large leaked account databases to feast on.
These records display an email address associated with the person or organization who registered the domain name. Why do the work yourself when other spammers have already built up lists of email addresses for you? Unscrupulous people will sell lists of email addresses to spammers for a low price.
These email addresses were often distributed on CDs in the past, and they may still be, but leaked account databases have probably taken some steam out of this marketplace. Spammers may also just trade their lists of email addresses with other spammers, ensuring more spammers will get their hands on your email address once one does.
Spammers can also get email addresses in other ways — for example, malware could harvest address book data and send it to spammers — but the above methods are some of the most common. Still, the idea of changing my primary work email address from info mtit dot com to [email protected] sounds appealing to me.
Because then by diligently taking care who I send emails to and also what sites and lists and boards I subscribe to using my email address, perhaps I can avoid having my work email address leak out into the wild and get spammed out of my mind as a consequence.
For example, I could start obfuscating my work email address as I did above in the first sentence of this paragraph. That would help keep my email address from being easily harvested, right? Not at all. Obfuscating publicly visible email addresses like this poses absolutely no barrier for the determined spammer. And spammers are a very determined bunch indeed.
What are some of the other ways that spammers can get hold of your email address? They can subscribe to every mailing list and message board under the sun.
They can query insecure LDAP servers and mail servers. They can get their hands on the email directory of the company you work at using various means ranging from injecting malware to social engineering. I do not use it to sign up for anything, no sites, no forums, no newsletters, no look up my contacts to connect with people, I have other dummy accounts for that, with no personal contacts.
All my devices are personal and I do not log in anywhere else or use public WiFi. So how did someone get my contacts from my personal email account? Mobile Apps frequently ask for access to your Contacts --who knows what they do once permission is granted. At least the Apps ask, whereas our PC programs are stealthy and we have no knowledge of access at all.
I run with as few addons and extensions as possible in my browsers as these come from 3rd parties and there integrity is unknown. Btw: Using CC: in email exposes you to all recipients as well as to each other. If any one of them forward that email, the problem explodes to other unknown to you persons.
Instead, use the Bcc: feature and everyone will swear that you sent it directly and ONLY to them as the list is not retained in the email headers.
Thanks for the info. Isn't mobile security based on isolating each app from the core OS where each app will need to get permission to access other parts of the phone like camera, contacts, pictures,? I didn't send the spam email to the users, I was not the one who CCd them in the headers. Yes and understood. Grabbing ID and then using it would no occur at the same time. Fetch contacts and users email, saving for latter use. In this case, you give your email address to a trusted company and it gets stolen or sold from there.
Rest assured this will never happen on our website! Since sending emails is basically free if you have access to the right tools and software, spammers will compile a list of domain names and then send spam to common names at that domain name. For instance, they might send email to [email protected] , [email protected] and tens of thousands of other common names and combinations of names and numbers. Spammers might create a fake service or fake newsletter just to trick you into willingly entering your information.
Some phishing techniques can be very sophisticated with spammers impersonating banks, government agencies, friends from Facebook, or other supposedly trusted sources. For example, suppose I own the domain name joelsdomain.
Then I register for an account with twitter. Spammers can get your email address from even the largest, and supposedly most secure of vendors! I recently started tracking using different names for every single company. For instance, for paypal I would use an example like [email protected] , etc.
When I catch them now, I ditch my business relationship with that company and delete the email. Great article. I get hundreds of them daily. What could spammers possibly get from that nonsense?!
It was a Dollar General that sold? You have given me some great info tho!!! But u gotta admit…. For some people, using several or even dozens of personal emails is a matter of importance and real need. For example, Internet marketers or SEO promoters need to register their client websites or companies in various services, platforms, social networks etc.
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