Some email programs automatically collect email addresses included on messages received, or possibly from forwarded email. Spammers use any email address they can find. That could include other email addresses they’re sending to, email addresses fed to them by a botnet, email addresses harvested online, or perhaps even the addresses in the address books of infected machines. For instance, your email address can end up in the address books of people you don’t know. This technique is referred to as “ From:” spoofing. Spammers forge the “From:” address for the email they send. And there’s worse news to come.Ī very common variation on “From:” spoofing: Why Am I Getting Spam from Myself? “From:” forgery Welcome to the world of email malware, where you can get blamed for someone else’s infection. Or worse yet, they accuse you of trying to send them malware!īut you don’t know them, you’ve never heard of them, and you know you’ve never sent them email. You’re minding your own business, and one day you get a message from someone you’ve never heard of, asking you to stop sending them email. If you’re getting email that appears to be “From:” your name or a name you recognize, but showing as “From:” the wrong email address, read this: Why Am I Getting Email from Someone with the Wrong Email Address?įinally, if people you don’t know are getting email “From:” you - the most common scenario of all - there’s probably nothing wrong. See Someone’s Sending Email that Looks Like it’s from Me to My Contacts, What Can I Do? If email is being sent to your contacts without your having done so, and you find messages in your “Sent Mail” folder that you did not send, your email account has most likely been hacked or compromised.
There are a couple of variations, so before we begin, let me also mention some articles that might more closely match your situation. Sadly, it’s something you can do almost nothing about. Whatever is happening is something significantly more benign. While possible, it’s highly unlikely your account has been hacked.