A reader wanted to alert me to a phishing scam that recently tried to hook her and even included a screenshot.
“I have a tech issue for you: it seems like the malware delivery method du jour is to send out “Message Undeliverable” emails and hope recipients open the attachment to see what it is they supposedly sent.
I initially thought my system was infected with malware that was shooting this stuff out. The more I think about it, though, the more convinced I am that these are coming at me from afar, with the hopes that I will open the attachments. I delete them as quickly as possible. You might consider advising readers.”
This is a classic example of what’s called a “phishing” scam. By making it appear that it came from your account, some folks will get curious and click. One easy way to check if your account is being used to send the messages is to look in your sent folder. If you don’t see the message, it didn’t come from your account.
Now, it’s possible the scammers might have spoofed your account (that means they falsely put your address as a return address. But that still has nothing to do with you and there’s nothing you can do about it.) Most likely, though this is just a scam to get you to click on those attachments and download malware onto your PC.