I have received multiple mail delivery failed messages to people i don't know. I believe my email has been hacked. How do I fix this?
I attempted to send an email this evening and I received multiple(many) messages stating :
This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:
[email protected] SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<[email protected]>: host mailin-02.mx.aol.com [152.163.0.100]: 550 5.1.1 <[email protected]>: Recipient address rejected: aol.com
This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------
And many more like this! I have no idea who this is nor do I know any of the other people in the other messages! Is this a virus? A glitch? is my computer hacked? I don't know how to fix this but for now, I am unable to send ANY emails!
Please help me figure this out!
Sincerely,
Stephanie Luchnick
All Replies (2)
It is highly likely that someone is just abusing your email address and sending to any email address in your name. If the sent to address does not exist then the mail is undelivered and you get a Mailor Daemon message. This will probably be the first you will know of this happening.
What to do: Do not respond to any of those emails - delete them. Add your own personal signature to your emails and send out an email to all your friends stating that someone has been abusing your email address. Tell them that genuine emails from you will always have the special signature as shown in that email. Apologise for any inconvenience and then always use the signature in your emails.
Eventually, they give up and stop using it especially if they do not get people responding. Make sure you do not display your email address in any forums etc. Tell friends and family to never send or forward any emails to other people which contain your email address - ask them to remove email address if forwarding. People have a habit of forwarding 'humerous' emails to other friends without removing all the email addresses before sending and you have no idea where those emails end up.
It is unlikely to be a virus. But you can check by restarting your computer in safe mode and then running a scan.
If you cannot send emails it could be because your email address has been flagged up as someone who sends spam. This could be due to a temporary stop set by the server. If it persistes them you would need to contact them or your ISP depending upon the server.