onDvine
Premium
join:2005-01-29
So. CA, USA
clubs:
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| "My" spam has husband's name in Subject fields
My husband and I have separate computers, not networked. Both are plugged into a DSL router from Verizon, our ISP. NOTHING is wireless...not even a mouse. Both machines are current on all patches, run Avast! AV, firewalls, and have 3rd party security applications installed (i.e., Spybot S&D w/ immunizations, SpywareBlaster, etc. They're scanned regularly and are clean.
We have separate Verizon email accounts and access them from our own computers. His account with his real surname displays only his first initial. Our Verizon bills are addressed to him by first and last name only.
I have a free web-based Yahoo account. It is not under my real surname. The address has never been given for an on line (credit card) purchase. It is not in my husband's computer's address book. No messages have ever passed between that account and his.
It's getting spam (mostly filtered to the bulk mail folder) that includes his REAL FIRST, MIDDLE, AND LAST NAME in the Subjects. A few of them just include his first and middle name, as if the middle name was the surname. The messages are apparently addressed to the user name on the account. It's not the usual Viagra and "replica watches" Yahoo spam. Below is a partial screen snapshot of my bulk mail folder a few days ago with his name blocked. 28 additional messages have come in since then.
A Google search for his name brings up nothing. The only way to find his full, real name on line is to know it and use one of those people search sites to find addresses, etc.
I don't know when the messages started because I rarely check the bulk mail, but it's been more than a month.
Does anybody have any idea how his real name might've become associated with my (under an alias) Yahoo account? All I can think of is that Verizon is "leaking" someplace, but even that doesn't make sense due to the inclusion of his middle name on most of the messages.
--
Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything. ▪Aesop |
|
SnowyOne
Premium
join:2003-04-05
Kailua, HI
 ·RoadRunner Cable
 ·Clearwire Wireless
| If it was your husbands name that's blacked out of the screen it would seem whoever the washer/dryer was purchased from was giving the name/email address association. |
|
JohnQPublic
Premium
join:2002-03-22
Xanadu | reply to onDvine
Monster.com or other job site maybe? |
|
onDvine
Premium
join:2005-01-29
So. CA, USA
clubs:
·Verizon Online DSL
| said by JohnQPublic  :Monster.com or other job site maybe? Thanks for the thought, JohnQPublic . But my husband has 30+ years with the phone company and hasn't been job hunting. |
|
onDvine
Premium
join:2005-01-29
So. CA, USA
clubs:
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to SnowyOne
said by SnowyOne :... whoever the washer/dryer was purchased from was giving the name/email address association. Thanks SnowyOne . The only problem with that theory is that we've never bought any washer/dryer. That message is 19k of who-knows-what, designed to make somebody want to open it. |
|
Frydays
join:2005-10-21
USA | reply to onDvine
i think you are better off closing that yahoo id and get a diffrent 1
or better yet just dont use yahoomail anymore |
|
onDvine
Premium
join:2005-01-29
So. CA, USA
clubs:
·Verizon Online DSL
| Thanks, Frydays . I have 4 other Yahoo accounts, all set up before I stopped using Yahoo for much of anything due to a variety of things I don't like about them.
My main concern is trying to figure out where the breach in security is/was that allowed the association in the first place. |
|
atx
@optonline.net
| reply to onDvine
Haha my father has the same problem - only on his aol account
Since he's new to the whole internet scene
He decided to enter his name on some travel site and his email
Slowly he began to receive spam mail from all sorts of sources and people.
Apparently there is a shared email list among the spammers - Or whoever has his email got their pc infected with malware and the email list was compromised
There are many possibilities on why he is receiving such mail but i would close the account or just set up a spam filter or block all those addresses if needed |
|
seqrets
Premium
join:2001-05-03
Nederland, TX
clubs: | reply to onDvine
Have friends/relatives ever receive emails from these accounts? If so, someone may have added both accounts to their contact list and at one time included you both in a link that harvested his email addy!? |
|
onDvine
Premium
join:2005-01-29
So. CA, USA
clubs:
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to atx
said by atx :
... There are many possibilities on why he is receiving such mail but i would close the account or just set up a spam filter or block all those addresses if needed He isn't receiving the mail; I am. It's already in the Bulk Mail folder, so Yahoo is filtering it. I'm getting it in account he has no association with and that isn't under our real surname. Am trying to figure out how it happened. |
|
SnowyOne
Premium
join:2003-04-05
Kailua, HI
·RoadRunner Cable
·Clearwire Wireless
| reply to onDvine
said by onDvine :said by SnowyOne :... whoever the washer/dryer was purchased from was giving the name/email address association. Thanks SnowyOne . The only problem with that theory is that we've never bought any washer/dryer. That message is 19k of who-knows-what, designed to make somebody want to open it. hehe, it got my attention!  |
|
onDvine
Premium
join:2005-01-29
So. CA, USA
clubs:
·Verizon Online DSL
1 edit | reply to seqrets
said by seqrets :Have friends/relatives ever receive emails from these accounts? ... Thanks seqrets , but nobody who would send to both of us would use the Yahoo account. I get mail in it only from on line friends of mine and never from real people we both know. |
|
onDvine
Premium
join:2005-01-29
So. CA, USA
clubs:
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to SnowyOne
said by SnowyOne :... hehe, it got my attention! Yep...that's the whole point, I imagine.  |
|
SnowyOne
Premium
join:2003-04-05
Kailua, HI
·RoadRunner Cable
·Clearwire Wireless
| On the serious side, finding the source of the name/email address connection can become an important issue over & above the frustration of receiving spam.
A good example would be a phisher using the database to send out "personalized" PayPal or eBay phish mail.
It's a lot easier to catch someone offguard with a phish email when the persons correct name is used in the email.
It doesn't matter if half the database has incorrect info such as your entry does. It's the few that have the correct name/email account data that's on record at PayPal, eBay etc... that can catch someone offguard. |
|
onDvine
Premium
join:2005-01-29
So. CA, USA
clubs:
·Verizon Online DSL
| said by SnowyOne :... On the serious side, finding the source of the name/email address connection can become an important issue over & above the frustration of receiving spam. ... That's pretty much where I'm at. Seems like some kind of leak had to happen someplace, but damned if I can figure out how or where.
All my "real" addresses (from ISP and web-based) are protected during on line purchases (and at sites that will accept them) by using addresses from »www.spamgourmet.com. If I must give a real address, it isn't that one. And no web-based email address is under my real name or my husband's. |
|
seqrets
Premium
join:2001-05-03
Nederland, TX
clubs:
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to onDvine
Look at it this way, and take into account what I am proposing. What are the chances that out of the blue that a SpamBot would nail your husbands first name, middle initial and last name!
Either one or both of your pc's/accounts has been compromised or as I said earlier, a friend/family member's pc is to blame. Other than that, there is still the possibility than one of you has registered for something somewhere with an account that leads to home? |
|
onDvine
Premium
join:2005-01-29
So. CA, USA
clubs:
·Verizon Online DSL
3 edits | I appreciate your input but the scenario you describe seems unrealistic.
If one or both of our computers/accounts had actually been compromised, they would have gotten it right rather than scrambled.
Likewise if a friend/family member's computer was to blame. As I said, no mutual friends or family members have the Yahoo address that's getting the spam.
Edited (twice): And there is no possibility that one of us registered for something using that account.
The account was used at Webshots 4 years ago. I didn't find out until the day after posting this.  |
|
mikenolan7
Premium
join:2005-06-07
Torrance, CA | reply to onDvine
Is it possible that an earlier association with Yahoo connected your husband's name with that email? (i.e. SBC/Yahoo as provider?) |
|
onDvine
Premium
join:2005-01-29
So. CA, USA
clubs:
·Verizon Online DSL
1 edit | Thanks, Mike, but no. The Yahoo account is strictly my web-based freebie under an alias and we've never had an Internet connection through SBC.
When we switched from comcast (after TWC took over) to Verizon, we never activated the Yahoo or M$N associations that were offered. |
|
La Luna
Surviving Ashraful
Premium
join:2001-07-12
Warwick, NY
clubs:
·Optimum Online
 ·Vonage
| reply to onDvine
Well, there's only so many possibilities on how his name got on spam sent to your email address.
Is there any chance hubby used your email address with his name for something and maybe he doesn't want to tell you? Just trying to come up with something that makes logical sense as to how/why this cross spam is happening. |
|
