Spammers can use your email address to send unsolicited emails and you may just realize they did when you start receiving numerous non delivery messages in your mailbox.
Have you ever received an email message that looks like this?
This type of email is called a Non Delivery Report or NDR. These messages also come by the name Delivery Status Notifications (DSN) and “bounce messages”.This is the message that email users often receive when the message that they have sent failed to be received by the recipient. NDRs are actually helpful because they help email users know when they were unsuccessful in sending their electronic messages. However, some people are starting to receive NDR messages regardless that they have not sent messages to the supposed recipients. This is now referred to as an occurrence of NDR spam or backscatter spam.
How Spammers Use Somebody Else’s Email to Send Junk Mails
NDR spam occurs when somebody receives NDR messages without him actually sending such email messages. How did this happen? Spammers used to harvest email addresses to send spam messages. Nowadays, however, they can also use these addresses as senders of their junk messages. Spammers may use your email address when sending spam messages and when this happens, you receive the non delivery notification when a recipient’s email does not exist.
How to Stop NDR Spam
Prevention is better than cure, they say, and this applies in avoiding the hassles of being a target of NDR spams. Among the best ways to block ndr spam are to avoid displaying your email address in text form in the world wide web and to use efficient anti spam filters. It also helps if you have a separate email when registering for trivial sites and web memberships. People who sign up for “free product updates” and free jokes are also more at risk of being victimized by spammers.
More information about backscatter spam is available in the NDR spam white paper released by the GFI software company.
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