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Question

Very phishy bounce-back e-mail

Aug 25, 2016 9:54AM PDT

I’m curious about how an apparent scam was carried out.
I got a “delivery failed” notice in my in box. The header said it was from my e-mail to a single letter AT gmail, and the e-mail had bounced back. But that didn’t make a lot of sense, especially when the purported out-mail had an attachment which was a photo intended to get a reflexive click on it. I deleted the e-mail, but I’m curious as to how the out-mail was supposedly sent from my own account. Can a header be forged, or has my account definitely been hacked? What would be the smartest next thing for me to do?

NTG

Discussion is locked

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Answer
"Can a header be forged,"?
Aug 25, 2016 10:07AM PDT

That's a simple yes. There are long, too long discussions on how this happens so I won't discuss that here. It's done.

As to what to do, just delete such and my view is that you need to disable any images that are fetched when you read your email. THAT again is widely discussed so here's a copy of a short version:

"Images in email are commonly used by spammers and marketers to determine whether or not you've opened an email. This implicitly also tells them whether the email was delivered successfully and whether the destination email address was valid (useful for spammers)."
http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/7489/why-would-someone-want-to-block-images-in-email

Sorry if you feel shortchanged but it's one of those issues that is well done.

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Thank you
Aug 25, 2016 10:38AM PDT

Don't feel short-changed at all. Asked a straight question, got a direct answer that covers my question. . .I'm good.
Thanks.