Got a weird email from my own address and it freaked me out

So about a month ago, I was just checking my inbox at home and saw an email from myself. The subject was just 'Re: Our chat' and the body was a link. I knew right away it was a phishing scam, probably a spoofed sender address, but it still felt super creepy. I didn't click it, obviously, and ran a malware scan on my computer just in case, which came back clean. But it got me thinking about how to actually stop these from even hitting my inbox. I've heard two main ideas: one side says you need a really strong spam filter and to report every single one, while the other side says you should just ignore them completely because engaging at all, even to report, can flag your address as active. I'm leaning toward reporting them, but I'm not totally sure. What's the best move here for dealing with spoofed emails from your own account?

2 comments

2 Comments

skylerp2029d ago

Honestly the creep factor is real, it's like digital identity theft. The real trick is checking the full email header for the actual sending server, that shows the spoof instantly. Makes it less scary when you see the fake address plain as day.

finley_lee29d agoMost Upvoted

Checking the full email header does help, but @skylerp20 saying it shows the spoof instantly isn't always true. Some spoofs are way more clever now and can look real even in the headers. The real creep factor for me is how they copy the writing style of someone you know. Makes you wonder how much they've read before trying this.