Security Tips: Compromised Mailbox
Here are some symptoms of a compromised mailbox that you should know:
Symptom 1: Receiving bounce back messages for the emails that you didn’t send.
This implies that someone is using your email address in spam. In other words, a spammer is using your email address as the From field in an email. No matter who sent the message, the recipient of a message that is returned to sender is the one listed at the From address. To trace messages, however, you can get in touch with support. You can use this to confirm that the mails weren’t actually sent from your mailbox.
Symptom 2: Others are receiving emails from you (that you didn’t send).
There is a typical situation where the questioned messages are absent from the Sent items folder. This is because the hacker erased them beforehand. You can get in touch with support to track messages, as was mentioned in the previous stage.
Symptom 3: Some emails are deleted or moved to a different folder.
This might indicate that the hacker has moved the emails manually or mailbox rules were created that moved the messages.
Symptom 4: Mail forwarding has been added.
One of the common tactics that hackers use includes setting up email forwarding via Outlook rule. This is due to its immunity to typical responses like resetting users’ passwords.
How to prevent a compromised mailbox:
To prevent a compromised mailbox that will cause unauthorized spamming, we would advise all the hosting & server owners to be vigilant of trojans and malware. They may be injected into their hosting.
What you need to do:
Firstly, change the mailbox login password immediately. You will need to change it to a more complicated password consisting of numbers; symbols and upper and lower case letters.
Secondly, scan the computers you use to access your mailbox. You can connect through Microsoft Security Essentials and upgrade their version of Windows Security (for Windows users). Remember to do the required anti-virus scans as well.
Next, update all third-party software for hosting as well as CMS (Content Management Systems) for websites like WordPress and Joomla. Through these gaps, some spyware and trojans can infiltrate hosting.
