E-mail question: i.e. Return mail.

[The Backlash Cometh]

For the last few days, I've been receiving Return Mail messages and the few that I opened revealed e-mail addresses that I don't recognize. There is no message in the body to give me an idea of what was sent to begin with, but there is an attachment which I'm not inclined to open. Is it possible that someone is using my e-mail address to spam people? Or am I the target and is someone hoping that I'll open the attachment to release a virus?

Anyone heard of this happening to anyone else?

[canetoad]

1. Happened to my work email a while back

One of our consultants had a virus/trojan. She also had our email in her address book. I noticed a lot of bounced emails that supposedly originated from us but I know did not.

I worked out who the consultant was by reading the body of the emails; whichever virus it was would post random chunks of text from files on the infected computer. In that way I found clues to the identity of the source.

All I can say is run a thorough virus scan, Spybot etc. and do not open any of the attachments.

[trotsky]

2. What canetoad said.

Someone who had your e-mail address in their address book, or in their IE cache, or somewhere, was infected by a virus that then picked you at random to spoof as a return address. Just delete those e-mails. Nothing you could have done to prevent this.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Thanks to everyone who responded!