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What's a "joe job" and why are spammers using my domain?In the past 3 days I've received dozens of returned e-mails that appear to be sent by my domain name but that are not valid email addresses. For example I received a returned e-mail today that was "sent" from nvsnx@mydomainname.com but there is no user "nvsnx". Where did this come from, how do I stop it, and what risk am I at from this happening? You're a victim of what the spyware / spam community calls a joe job, a deliberate effort to send out spam or other email (often viruses or spyware) masquerading as part of your domain or even as you, rather than having the sender be their own account. Unfortunately, there's really not much you can do about this sort of problem, though it's definitely important to check and ensure that you don't have an open mail relay or otherwise aren't actually hosting the spam messages being sent out: if your system is compromised, spam being sent might be the least of your problems! Here's information on how to test for an open relay: quick check for an open mail relay. If you do find that your site is open or, upon investigation, has been hacked, then I suggest the following sequence of events (and yes, they're painful):
If you're clean, you're not an open relay and your system hasn't been compromised, then all you can do when you're the victim of a "joe job" is to just wait it out and apologize (and explain) if you get any grumbly email from victims. You can point them to the following Wikipedia page to explain what's happening: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job Good luck! This is a very frustrating experience, I know.
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Categorized:
Computer and Internet Basics
(Article 6920,
Written by Dave Taylor)
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