# Bogus WR E-mails



## AngelEyes

I received a pm e-mail today from what was supposed to be a member here on the WR Forums. It "smelled" funny, so I didn't click on the link that would take me to my notifications. Instead, I came here through my own personal shortcut. I'm glad I did because I had received no legitimate private message.  

Have you had that happen to you?

Is this just another way hackers are trying to hit you with a virus attack now?

I'd be interested in hearing your comments.


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## mkellogg

Hi AngelEyes,

Can you please forward that to the forum07 email account so I can look at it?  That is very strange and the first I've heard of anything like it.

Mike


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## AngelEyes

Unfortunately, I flung it away like a long-legged spider, Mike. If I receive another one, I'll let you know. And since it looks like this is an isolated case, is it possible that somehow it just happened to be a forum e-mail used to send a possible virus? I wish now I had looked closer to see what address it actually came from. Not very helpful, am I?

Is it also possible whoever sent the pm deleted it before I could get to my profile page here? Would that have made it disappear?


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## mkellogg

A PM would be in your PM folder, so it doesn't look like something that was legitimate.  If you get another, please let me know and then forward it to me.


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## AngelEyes

I just double-checked my pm box, and there's nothing. I'll let you know if I receive another one. Thanks, Mike.


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## OLN

Hi guys.

I received a similar suspicious e-mail from forum07@wordreference.com on 2nd February. It's a new reply notification in rich text format asking for user name and password to access the forums.
I'm forwarding it to you, Mike.

(merci, pointvirgule)


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## AngelEyes

The notification in my mailbox of this post of yours came through that address, OLN.

Mike, NBC just did a news story tonight about fake attachments coming through in legitimate-looking e-mails. You click on the link, and your whole computer is immediately hijacked and held for ransom. These jokers are even hitting police departments.

I won't click on any attachment, no matter who it appears to be from now on.


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## mkellogg

Thanks for the forwarded message, OLN.  It is related to something that I've been working on. You shouldn't have been sent the email.

The good news is that I don't think anything is wrong or malicious. Just ignore these strange emails for now if I can't get them to stop.


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## OLN

Thank you, Mike.


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## stella_maris_74

Uhm, we actually have an antispam tool in place that takes care of banning the spammer and deleting all of their posts at the same time. If the spammer has sent any PMs by the time we use the tool on him, they get deleted aswell.

AngelEyes, I am now thinking that you might have been the recipient of one of those spammy PMs. The system sent you a regular e-mail notification about the new PM, but by the time you got to open your WR inbox the antispam tool had gotten rid of the spammer, their posts and their PMs


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## AngelEyes

Thank you for this, stella maris. I hope that's what happened. 

One thing that was different about it, though, was that the entire pm message was contained in the bed of the notice. This used to happen with all legitimate notices a few years ago, but the forum has stopped that practice lately. When I saw that feature again, it made me stop and read it closely.

How would the forum know it was a spammer? Wouldn't he have had to be a member to send a message in the first place? What information pops up to alert the spam system it needs to delete this specific person? That's some tool to think like that!


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## stella_maris_74

As far as I know, the text of a PM still appears in the body of the notification e-mail. That's what happens to me at least, and it never stopped functioning that way.

As per the antispam tool, I really wish there was one able to automatically detect spammers and get rid of them , but no: a moderator has to notice the spammer and manually "activate" the tool on them.

When they register here, spammers are regular users just like any other junior member. They can post threads and send PMs. They get banned and their threads/posts are removed from the public forums as soon as a moderator has the opportunity to notice, verify and take the appropriate action.


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## AngelEyes

Thank you for this fuller explanation.


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## stella_maris_74

You're welcome 
That's just my best guess, however. Just for further clarification, the antispam tool tells us how many posts and how many PMs (if any) have been deleted when we use it on a spammer, but it doesn't tell us which forum member the PMs had been sent to, nor shows us their content.


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