I got a "returned email" that I didn't send out...does this mean my email

[rumguy]

account has been hacked or invaded?

I have a mac, I thought those were impervious to virus invasions.

My email account doesn't keep track of sent mail, so I can't keep track of all mail leaving my account...

[Syrinx]

1. was there an attachment of about 30kb?

If so, it's the MyDoom virus.

[rumguy]

4. no attachment

[RobertSeattle]

2. May mean someone you know has the Virus

The Virus pulled your email address from the infected PC and sent out an email with a spoofed from address.

The great downfall of internet email is how easy it is to "spoof" email addresses.

[rumguy]

6. what does spoofed mean?

[RobertSeattle]

14. Actual Sender is not the Sender you see

It's not hard to create an send an email from "[e-mail]" when you aren't actually that person - there is nothing in the email protocols that verifies the sender's identity. It's the equivalent of putting a bogus reply address on an envelope, but with mail it will cost you 37 cents, some dope with a program can send out millions of email and costs them virtually nothing.

[stanwyck]

15. Yeah, I think you're right

this happened to me at work on my PC. (only MACs at the house). This virus is everywhere. Be very careful of any email you get with an attachment. Always.

[gater]

3. Attacked?

You may well have a bug...your system is not impervious to infection, just a lot less likely target due to your using a system that I believe about 8% of people use. Great Box though, wish I could use it at work!

[Atman]

13. *YAWN* Oh puh-leeze

>"due to your using a system that I believe about 8% of people use"

What a load of crap.

No, it has nothing to do with market share and everything to do with crappy software. The e-mail is indeed an indication of the dreaded virus. An indication that some chump running a Winbox with your e-mail address somewhere in its mailbox got infected, NOT you. The e-mail made its way back to you because it glommed onto your address in the Winbox. When it turned out to be a fake address, it "returned" it to you. If you were running a Winbox, it would then do the same thing the people in YOUR mailbox, and send itself back out.

The Mac OS won't execute files the way Windows does. Period. Apple could have a 98% market share, and the OS still is infinitely less likely to "catch" a virus, simply because of the way the OS functions, not because of how many -- or few -- people own Macs. I don't own a Mac because it is pretty. In fact, mine is downright ugly. But it is fast, stable as a rock and I don't get viri. That works for me just fine.

[Carolina]

5. same here

I have updated my Norton antivirus protection but have still received a few such messages when I have not sent any emails lately. I just permanently delete and let Norton rescan.

So far, so good.

[rumguy]

8. I've scanned with antivirus several times and have never found anything

Even though there was a questionable incident with another account several months ago...where someone definetaly sent a bunch of spam out of that account...yet strangely I never found a virus on my comp...

[JohnyCanuck]

7. I think It could be a virus on someone Else's computer.

Say person X has your email address in his address book and is infected by a virus. The virus might send out emails from Person X but make it look like the email was really coming from you. If the message can't be delivered it gets sent back to you as it looks like you were the originator (even though you're not).

I had the same thing happen to me yesterday when I got two emails returned to me that I had never sent out and did not have any idea who the intended recipients were. One of the returned emails had a zip file attachment. I just deleted them without attempting to open them up.

[Az]

9. The new crop of virie

Attack a system and find its email address book. It then sends out email/virus to all the accounts in the book. It attaches random addresses from the list to the return address there by fooling any virus filters as to the source of the virus. Thus someone you know has been infected as is sending out virie. Someones system intercepted this email and sent a return message to your computer because your address was in the return address. Your system is very unlikely to be infected as it is a Mac.

[Kanary]

10. or, could be from a mass spam mailing

You got the message that one of the addys didn't go through with a mass spam mailing, possibly.

I've had those.

It's irritating enough to get the damned spam, without the followup.

Kanary

[starroute]

12. I agree with this answer

I've had that happen periodically. It's never anything I sent out myself. There's never a virus or spyware on my own machine. And when I Googled the domain names given in the text of the messages, they were all notorious spammer nests.

So if your system checks out clean, I'd say to ignore it.

[carols]

11. My contactus for the website gets tons of these every day

It's spam - sometimes they have viruses but if you have a good mail provider, it'll get stripped. It's the latest annoyance. Chances are no one has hacked you. There are a lot of these going around - some have sunject lines that say "Status" "Hello" "Returned e-mail" "Mail status" - the list is endless. I just hope no one is putting those subject headers in stuff they really want me to read, because I just mass delete 'em.
Carol

[1monster]

16. Are you on AOL? Because I got six of those back

from Mailer Daemon and another AOL member that I know got two back. Neither of us had sent anything out and didn't know the e-mail addresses referred to in the return.

A AOL person told my friend that someone may have been sending spam mail out under our screen names and to call Customer Service (currently located in India :eyes: ) and to run a virus check...

[smiley_glad_hands]

17. There is nothing you can do about it

A spammer is spoofing your email address in an attempt to either spread a virus or just send spam. Your computer does not need to be infected by a virus for this to happen---thats why there is essentially is nothing you can do about. Somehow a spammer got your email addy--either randomly generated or from a different computer that may be infected. I had this happen to me quite a bit when sobig was spreading rampantly. All you can do is just wait it out and keep your virus definitions updated, scan once a week, keep your operating system updated (windows update), and use a firewall like Zonealarm (especially if you have a broadband connection). Follow those simple rules and your pc will be secure. Forgot that you have a Mac on edit-----Nope still nothing you can do about it---email protocols are the same for mac as pc--its an internet kinda thing. Fortunately though, having a mac makes your comp more secure than a pc.