Backscatter explained
When my mail box suddenly exploded I went looking for an explanation. What I discovered was backscatter - yet another way to get ’spammed’
Yesterday my inbox went crazy. Within an hour I had more than 70 messages, all telling me I had sent undeliverable messages. At first I thought they were legit so I checked - but nothing suggested what they were. Desperate for an answer I asked UNE’s spam expert Gordon Smith. Turns out that what I had experienced was a wave of backscatter.
Backscatter works like this: A virus or spam source ‘forges’ an email so that the from address points to a mailserver that it wants to target. The aim is to try and target a mailserver that will send a DSN (Delivery Status Notification) plus attachments if an email can’t be delivered. Once the email is sent the targeted server gets flooded with bounced messages which can cause it to crash. The messages might also contain viruses so don’t open any attachments.
So what do you do if you’ve been backscattered? nothing. Just delete any emails and don’t open any attachments. Backscatter ‘attacks’ happen all the time and tend to come in waves so just keep deleting the messages until they stop.