Emails addressed to me, but go to someone else!

[AledJ]

I was checking my dad's phone for an email he wanted, and noticed there was email with my name in it (think it was a ppi email thing) Anyway I thought it was just a one off or something like that, but then I saw a few other spam emails. They were addressed to my first name in the email, but they were sent to me dad's email address. Now why would that happen? Only reason I can think of is that he entered my name when signing up for something or other.


Any other ideas?

[BobF64]

The displayed name and the email address are in no way linked, nor validated.

Heck, when sending emails, you can pretty much put in whatever you like too.

If you look at a message header you will see for yourself.

eg it may say To: "Aled J" <aledj@example>

The part in quotes is not part of the email address itself, its just an optional label, and where it is not supplied by the sender, the recipient will usually display it if it has it.
Its like a mobile phone showing just the name, if its in your contacts, or the number if its unknown.

[AledJ]

Some of the emails said something like " Hi Aled......." but with my dad's email the recipient address. 'Aled' is a Welsh name and not common outside of Wales, wish is why I wondered how it ended up in an email sent to him.

[finlay666]

The displayed name and the email address are in no way linked, nor validated.

Heck, when sending emails, you can pretty much put in whatever you like too.

This is sortof correct

You can send email as whoever you want that is true, but to verify this (as email servers do as part of the spam filter methods) you can link and validate it based on the originator properties (who actually sent it) based on the validation of the sender, this was recenty done when someone impersonated Larry Page (Google CEO) sending an email to Sergey Brin (Google cofounder) as they used a less secure key

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-mat...erview-2012-10

There are also validating the MX records for emails that are genuine but not from the originator (we use a 3rd party SMTP system that is validated via us creating MX records for the service's IP addresses)

I've noticed a lot of emails recently appearing to come from people I know (either facebook or follow on twitter) but the email addresses are obviously wrong and the content is junk

[AledJ]

This is sortof correct

You can send email as whoever you want that is true, but to verify this (as email servers do as part of the spam filter methods) you can link and validate it based on the originator properties (who actually sent it) based on the validation of the sender, this was recenty done when someone impersonated Larry Page (Google CEO) sending an email to Sergey Brin (Google cofounder) as they used a less secure key

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-mat...erview-2012-10

There are also validating the MX records for emails that are genuine but not from the originator (we use a 3rd party SMTP system that is validated via us creating MX records for the service's IP addresses)

I've noticed a lot of emails recently appearing to come from people I know (either facebook or follow on twitter) but the email addresses are obviously wrong and the content is junk

So is this caused by some virus? I have no idea how it is happening or why. And how did they get my name in the first place. Bit concerned its some virus :| But I hardly get any junk emails maybe 20 in3 days, and I scanned my pc just 2 weeks ago.

[finlay666]

Not a virus, a 'hack' in the security and trust system used in emails

Scans should be more regular than fortnightly though

[AledJ]

Not a virus, a 'hack' in the security and trust system used in emails

Scans should be more regular than fortnightly though

So someone has hacked an email between us and got my name from it, is that roughly it?

Yeah I know I should scan a lot more, but being working over time lately so let it slip a little.

[AledJ]

Can someone explain roughly how it got my name? Did it somehow copy mine or my dad's contact list? Although if it did that other people would have had such emails. Is there anything I can do to stop it? And my mother is not get any such emails either. My dad only get maybe 4 of them a day with my name in it, and i checked my sent folder nothing there.