Why did I receive an Undeliverable Email message for an email that I never sent? Why did I receive an email message telling me that my computer may be infected with a virus in response to an email I never sent? Is my computer sending out emails? Has my computer been infected with a virus?
If you receive an undeliverable email in response to an email you never sent, it does not necessarily mean your computer is infected with a virus or that the email originated from your account. You may also receive a message telling you that the message was undeliverable because it contained a virus and that your computer may be infected. This does not necessarily mean that your computer is infected by a virus. Many threats, particularly mass mailing worms and Trojans, spread by searching the infected computer for email addresses. These threats put one email address in the "To" field and one in the "From" field of an infected email message. The email is then sent out using the spoofed (false) "From" address, in this case, yours with a virus often attached as a payload. When this happens, one of three things can occur:
1. The email can be rejected by the recipient server because it contained a virus and send a message back to you, the "spoofed" sender alerting you that you may be infected.
2. The email can be returned back to you, the "spoofed" sender, as undeliverable if the recipients address is invalid.
3. The recipient receives the email due to inadequate virus protection and blames you for sending them an email virus.
The problem is that the computer that receives the email cannot determine that you really didn't send the email. It only had the "spoofed" address to tell it where to send the reply email. Almost everyone receives one of these emails at one time or another. The best thing you can do is to make sure that your organization is protected with adequate virus protection. It isn't enough to only provide virus protection on your workstations. To provide adequate email virus protection, you must protect your email server itself so that every email within your organization is protected from email viruses. If you would like more information on how iTech Atlanta can protect your organization from email viruses, contact us at
