Forum Moderators: phranque
Hopefully I can describe this situation properly.
Our company has four domains, each on our server so they all share the same IP address. For example purposes, let's say domain_a, domain_b, domain_c, and domain_d.
An email sent from domain_a was returned as undeliverable:
Subject: Returned mail: User unknown
The original message was received at Wed, 21 Jan 2004 10:38:02 -0500
(EST)
from www.domain_b.com [000.00.00.00]
(it had our ip address there)
Why or how could the returned message indicate that it was sent from domain_b when it was sent from a domain_a email address?
We've never had that happen before and none of us here are versed in those types of things.
Thanks for any insight into this...
mp
We have a domain, and we started to get a lot of "Returned mail: User unknown" from AOL's mail daemon. It seems unscrupulous spammers - and really, are there any other kind? - were spoofing (I'm not sure if that's the right term or not) our mail()-based .php scripts to use our mail server to send spam completely unrelated to our business - and really, is there any other kind of spam?
Anyway, I had no idea until this morning - a very frantic morning trying to find out why we'd been suspended because of spam violations! - that this was a security loophole being exploited by spammers.
So, in short, I'd say pay special attention to the origination and/or destination of the emails you're noticing, so you don't get burned as well!
Dan "A Lot Bit Wiser Than at 8 a.m. Today" Ford sends...
But it's good for me to be aware that the php()-based mail scripts can be "hijacked"... I had thought they were safe from that.
Sorry to hear about the problems you experienced this morning due to the spammers.
Thanks again, and good luck!
meganp
