spam from myself - not

[chaszal]

Hello folks,
Lately, I've been getting spam in my email from, obstensibly, my own email address. What is it that these spammers are doing, and what can I do? (no trojans or evil software here)
Thanks,
Chas

[eddds40]

Same thing here and getting worse every day. My ISP knows they are spam as they put them in with spam filter but would also like to know what I could do to stop them spamming my email acct showing as coming from my email address. Would also like to know who all they are sending them to.

[Train]

Have you looked closely at the properties?

Until the zombie is found and cleaned up, that will keep happening.

[SpywareDr]

Using your own email address in the "From:" field is but one of the ways spammers attempt to evade your anti-spam filters.

The latest technique is the attackers have begun placing their fraudulent content in the "From:" field, and not in the normal "Subject:" or message body itself. Example here:

TrendLabs Malware Blog
Scammers Evade Spam Filters by using Email ‘From’ Fields
by Mary Ermitano (Anti-spam Research Engineer) December 18th, 2008 at 3:51 AM
http://blog.trendmicro.com/scammers-...l-from-fields/

While filters have been trained to scour almost everywhere else for common spam content patterns, the "From:" filed has remained largely ignored, until now.

According to Symantec, the leading types of spam observed over the last weeks include: "Replica watches", "Generic pharmacy", "Erectile dysfunction drugs", "Weight loss" and "Software". This unwanted email is being sent from literally all over the world. Brazil has shot up to the top spot with 22 percent. Russia, the U.S. and Turkey are at 12 percent each and China and India with 11 percent each.

No matter how they are composed, the vast majority of these unsolicited email messages attempt to lure end users into clicking on URLs, indicating the likelihood that many of the messages are directly tied to malware (Malicious Software) schemes.

[eddds40]

The from field shows my email address, coming from spammers my ISP shows it as spam with their filter stopping it. However if I send a email to my own address the filter knows it is a legit email and passes it through the filter, so although it shows my addy the orgination of the email must be showing the filter to block it.

[chaszal]

Thanks, at least I know I'm not alone in weathering this barrage. Interesting article SpywareDr. Train, good idea about checking properties; I've been deleting the emails directly through MailWasher, so haven't checked, will do. Do you think there is a chance that the spammers will at some point be able to send malicious code in the "from" line? They seem to be ahead of the evasion game on this front at least.
Cautiously yours,
Chas