I'm being email bombed

[milee]

Starting around 1 this afternoon, my inbox (both spam and active folders) was flooded with spam.  Flooded = approx 10,000 per hour.

The emails are well designed enough to be dissimilar and difficult to write a quick, comprehensive filter for but are similar enough that it's obvious they're coming from a single source.  They're also in multiple languages and some use phrases that are suspicious to me since they're fairly similar to business I have contact with, but are jumbled into other things.


Anyway, my tech support team (AKA - 17 year old son) tells me this is an "email bomb" and it sometimes happens when someone is about to steal from your PayPal or other account.  They flood your email inbox with junk so you don't see the emails notifying you about payments or changes in passwords.  

I've changed passwords on bank accounts, PayPal and Amazon.  Now I'm just waiting to see what disappears...  

[milee]

Tech support corrected me and clarified that the emails are either meant to hide a notification OR to be so numerous that my email account shuts off after I exceed the max # of allowed emails in a day.  I guess after the max # of emails is exceeded, then the crooks can do what they want and I won't receive email notifications from PayPal or banks.

Pretty clever, if awful.

[Jaguar]

Good Luck and I'm hoping they get nothing that's yours. It's damn pissy imo.

[Tennesseer]

Good luck, Milee.  Keep us up to date.  This is interesting, thought not you you.  


on email bomb.


Email Bomb

[ArchietheDragon]

May 25, 2017 14:52:32 GMT -5 milee said:

Starting around 1 this afternoon, my inbox (both spam and active folders) was flooded with spam.  Flooded = approx 10,000 per hour.

The emails are well designed enough to be dissimilar and difficult to write a quick, comprehensive filter for but are similar enough that it's obvious they're coming from a single source.  They're also in multiple languages and some use phrases that are suspicious to me since they're fairly similar to business I have contact with, but are jumbled into other things.


Anyway, my tech support team (AKA - 17 year old son) tells me this is an "email bomb" and it sometimes happens when someone is about to steal from your PayPal or other account.  They flood your email inbox with junk so you don't see the emails notifying you about payments or changes in passwords.  

I've changed passwords on bank accounts, PayPal and Amazon.  Now I'm just waiting to see what disappears...  

hmmm...  who have you pissed of here lately?      

[milee]

Ugh.  Thanks, tenneseer.  I think it's a sort of the "list linking" since many of them appear to be confirming my sign up to various sites.  Not sure that's what they actually contain since I haven't clicked on any of them, but that's the "preview" sentence that shows up next to about 3/4 of them...

[Tennesseer]

Here is one person who got at least 60k emails in a bomb.


link

[milee]

May 25, 2017 15:08:13 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

May 25, 2017 14:52:32 GMT -5 milee said:

Starting around 1 this afternoon, my inbox (both spam and active folders) was flooded with spam.  Flooded = approx 10,000 per hour.

The emails are well designed enough to be dissimilar and difficult to write a quick, comprehensive filter for but are similar enough that it's obvious they're coming from a single source.  They're also in multiple languages and some use phrases that are suspicious to me since they're fairly similar to business I have contact with, but are jumbled into other things.


Anyway, my tech support team (AKA - 17 year old son) tells me this is an "email bomb" and it sometimes happens when someone is about to steal from your PayPal or other account.  They flood your email inbox with junk so you don't see the emails notifying you about payments or changes in passwords.  

I've changed passwords on bank accounts, PayPal and Amazon.  Now I'm just waiting to see what disappears...  

hmmm...  who have you pissed of here lately?      

Interesting thought.  

[ken a.k.a OMK]

my tech support team (AKA - 17 year old son)

[Pants]

May 25, 2017 15:08:13 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

May 25, 2017 14:52:32 GMT -5 milee said:

Starting around 1 this afternoon, my inbox (both spam and active folders) was flooded with spam.  Flooded = approx 10,000 per hour.

The emails are well designed enough to be dissimilar and difficult to write a quick, comprehensive filter for but are similar enough that it's obvious they're coming from a single source.  They're also in multiple languages and some use phrases that are suspicious to me since they're fairly similar to business I have contact with, but are jumbled into other things.


Anyway, my tech support team (AKA - 17 year old son) tells me this is an "email bomb" and it sometimes happens when someone is about to steal from your PayPal or other account.  They flood your email inbox with junk so you don't see the emails notifying you about payments or changes in passwords.  

I've changed passwords on bank accounts, PayPal and Amazon.  Now I'm just waiting to see what disappears...  

hmmm...  who have you pissed of here lately?      

I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for that meddling archie!

[Deleted]

Holy shit, definitely a lesson in monitor your financial accounts daily!

[NastyWoman]

May 25, 2017 15:18:58 GMT -5 ken a.k.a OMK said:

my tech support team (AKA - 17 year old son)

Don't laugh. My tech support team consists of a 35yo SW Engineer in Germany and a 39yo CEO in Singapore (or DS2 and DS1 respectively) and they are pretty damn responsive too.

[Spellbound454]

Have you got an email password you could change?

[milee]

Yes, changed the email password, too.  

I'm really, really hoping this is just made up spam and not a bot actually signing me up for all these random sites, newsletters, etc. (which is what the emails imply.)  Many appear to be "confirmations" of my new user name and password for x,y,z...  

Nobody needs my email password for that, they just use my email address, sign up with a random user name, etc.

[milee]

Knock on wood, but it's slowing down a little bit.  Was gone for about 3 hours to watch my son's band performance and when I returned only had about 350 new ones in the regular files and approx 2500 in the junk folder.  That's progress because at least 85% are being filtered out as junk (when it started, less than 10% were being filtered out as junk) plus that's only about 1000 an hour now.  Still a lot, but fewer than were coming through earlier this afternoon.

Hopefully it will continue to decrease and then stop as they move on to the next person.  

[ken a.k.a OMK]

May 25, 2017 16:21:02 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

May 25, 2017 15:18:58 GMT -5 ken a.k.a OMK said:

Don't laugh. My tech support team consists of a 35yo SW Engineer in Germany and a 39yo CEO in Singapore (or DS2 and DS1 respectively) and they are pretty damn responsive too.

I wasn't laughing.   up first. I was impressed as I am with your DS2 and DS1. Retired electrical engineer here whose 10 yo gs helps me  with technology. I miss the tubes glowing on my ham radios. 

[alabamagal]

May 25, 2017 20:26:08 GMT -5 milee said:

Knock on wood, but it's slowing down a little bit.  Was gone for about 3 hours to watch my son's band performance and when I returned only had about 350 new ones in the regular files and approx 2500 in the junk folder.  That's progress because at least 85% are being filtered out as junk (when it started, less than 10% were being filtered out as junk) plus that's only about 1000 an hour now.  Still a lot, but fewer than were coming through earlier this afternoon.

Hopefully it will continue to decrease and then stop as they move on to the next person.  

Hopefully not moving on to us here. 😀

[milee]

May 26, 2017 8:21:03 GMT -5 alabamagal said:

May 25, 2017 20:26:08 GMT -5 milee said:

Knock on wood, but it's slowing down a little bit.  Was gone for about 3 hours to watch my son's band performance and when I returned only had about 350 new ones in the regular files and approx 2500 in the junk folder.  That's progress because at least 85% are being filtered out as junk (when it started, less than 10% were being filtered out as junk) plus that's only about 1000 an hour now.  Still a lot, but fewer than were coming through earlier this afternoon.

Hopefully it will continue to decrease and then stop as they move on to the next person.  

Hopefully not moving on to us here. 😀

Normally I'd be more empathetic, but still getting around 1000 emails an hour, so my begrudging take on it is "you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here..."  

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

My former boss got his work email hacked by a bot.  He was getting 1000+ emails an hour.   For whatever reason the university IT department could not stop it.  He was getting emails in languages from all over the world.  He would spend the entire morning cleaning out his inbox.

He said on the bright side it was sometimes entertaining to try and figure out what language he was being yelled at in.

[milee]

May 26, 2017 9:00:29 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

My former boss got his work email hacked by a bot.  He was getting 1000+ emails an hour.   For whatever reason the university IT department could not stop it.  He was getting emails in languages from all over the world.  He would spend the entire morning cleaning out his inbox.

He said on the bright side it was sometimes entertaining to try and figure out what language he was being yelled at in.

Sounds similar to what is happening here.  Languages from all over the world.  But I don't think my email has been hacked.  I think they just have my email address and are using it to sign up for things. 

How long did it last for your boss?  (Think about lying to me if the true answer is more than a few days...)

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

May 26, 2017 9:12:28 GMT -5 milee said:

May 26, 2017 9:00:29 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

My former boss got his work email hacked by a bot.  He was getting 1000+ emails an hour.   For whatever reason the university IT department could not stop it.  He was getting emails in languages from all over the world.  He would spend the entire morning cleaning out his inbox.

He said on the bright side it was sometimes entertaining to try and figure out what language he was being yelled at in.

Sounds similar to what is happening here.  Languages from all over the world.  But I don't think my email has been hacked.  I think they just have my email address and are using it to sign up for things. 

How long did it last for your boss?  (Think about lying to me if the true answer is more than a few days...)

Let me put it this way. . you'd be better off creating a new email address and scraping this one.

[milee]

May 26, 2017 9:16:23 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

May 26, 2017 9:12:28 GMT -5 milee said:

Sounds similar to what is happening here.  Languages from all over the world.  But I don't think my email has been hacked.  I think they just have my email address and are using it to sign up for things. 

How long did it last for your boss?  (Think about lying to me if the true answer is more than a few days...)

Let me put it this way. . you'd be better off creating a new email address and scraping this one.

Dang.

I hate the idea of having to not just transfer contacts, but to go through and figure out what I've used this one to sign up for.   Blech.

So they never did stop it?

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

May 26, 2017 9:19:55 GMT -5 milee said:

May 26, 2017 9:16:23 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Let me put it this way. . you'd be better off creating a new email address and scraping this one.

Dang.

I hate the idea of having to not just transfer contacts, but to go through and figure out what I've used this one to sign up for.   Blech.

So they never did stop it?

Nope never stopped it.   Whatever it was that attached to his account would laugh in the face of any spyware they threw at it.  It'd slow down for a couple days and then pick back up again.   They got him down to about 2000 emails a day but that was as far as they could get.

[milee]

Why do they think it was attached to his account at all?

Maybe I'm not understanding what's happening but couldn't someone just get my email address - say it's [e-mail] and use that address to "sign up" on random sites that then send me ([e-mail]) an email to confirm my "new" account?  The bad guy doesn't need access to my email account to use my account name to sign up, right?

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

May 26, 2017 9:26:27 GMT -5 milee said:

Why do they think it was attached to his account at all?

Maybe I'm not understanding what's happening but couldn't someone just get my email address - say it's [e-mail] and use that address to "sign up" on random sites that then send me ([e-mail]) an email to confirm my "new" account?  The bad guy doesn't need access to my email account to use my account name to sign up, right?

I think what they did with his was a little different.   They were using his email to generate spam.  I don't think it was deliberate I think it was a lucky break.  He remembered getting an email from what looked like someone he collaborated with and opened it.   That's when the fun began.

I know I get emails sometimes that appear to be from people I know.  The only way I am getting these emails is if something is scanning facebook pages and lifting names.   I don't think they are personally scanning my page I just think the bot got lucky.

I made the mistake once of opening one thinking it was from my SIL and holy crap.  I'd have 5-6 pages worth of junk emails every day.  Fortunately changing my password did the trick and got rid of them for awhile.   They're back again but I learned my lesson and anything that appears to come from someone I know gets deleted.

Everyone important has my cell number and DH has my work email so there is no reason anyone should be contacting me thru my personal email.

[milee]

Well, I guess they could be spoofing my email address to generate spam.    Not sure.  But it looks like they're using my address to "sign up" for thousands of random accounts on random websites and/or groups.  The website or group then sends me a confirmation and it's all the confirmations that are clogging my email inbox.  

But that could just be a cover.  It could all just be spam from one place that spoofs their source to conceal it's basically one sender.  Again, the idea is shut email down so I don't get notices or so that I miss an important notice when they try to steal from my paypal.

If it's that - drown me in 60,000 so I miss one - hopefully that means it will have an end date.  If it's not, that will stink and I'll have to give up on this address.

[dannylion]

If you are concerned about a potential theft from your Paypal account, have you considered changing the email and password you use there? I wonder if that would thwart their end-game.

In any event, this sounds like a real nightmare.  I hope it stops soon and leaves nothing more than a really, really annoyed (but financially unscathed) Milee behind.   

[milee]

May 26, 2017 10:26:37 GMT -5 dannylion said:

If you are concerned about a potential theft from your Paypal account, have you considered changing the email and password you use there? I wonder if that would thwart their end-game.

In any event, this sounds like a real nightmare.  I hope it stops soon and leaves nothing more than a really, really annoyed (but financially unscathed) Milee behind.   

Oh, shutting the Paypal account down was the first thing I did.  Logically, to me that didn't make much sense - I wanted to first work on changing passwords to the bank accounts since there was a lot more $ risk attached to those, but Tech Support assured me that the target of these things is usually Paypal, so to work on that first.

Surprisingly (I say that sarcastically because I HATE Paypal), Paypal makes it pretty hard to freeze your account.  I ended up - after multiple logins and calls - shutting down the whole account.  At that time, it hadn't had any unauthorized activity.  So unless the scammers are able to re-open the account I think Paypal is safe.

The bank accounts worry me, though.  According to the bank, there really is no way to further increase security or to "freeze" the accounts.  I already have the two step authentication where they have to text me a code each time to log in and that's about as secure as they say they can get.  They were unable/unwilling to stop online access to wire transfers, which is the thing I'm most concerned about.  Their response was that after changing passwords and making sure the two step authentication was in place, not much more to do unless I want to close the entire online account.  

[dannylion]

Ugh. You'd think that by now bank customers should be able to do something short of completely closing an account to protect it if they have reason to believe they are the target of a scam. 

I hope this stops soon. 

[beergut]

 I once inadvertently wrote an email bomb at work.

 I was writing a simple script to automatically email my boss a spreadsheet every day, and didn't close the loop when I ran it the first time. Imagine my horror when I saw my sent mail box immediately fill up with emails to my boss, all on the same topic.

Fortunately, I was able to stop the script, recall all the email, and delete them, but it was a lesson in how a minor error can cause destruction.

I closed the loop, fixed the script, and used it every day thereafter.