Have you ever wondered how spammers manage to find your email address and start sending you junk and scam emails?  In this post I’ll describe three ways in which spammers are able to get their hands on lists of valid email addresses to target with their spam.

Directory Harvesting

Directory harvesting is a technique spammers use to trick an email server into telling them which email addresses exist in an organisation and which do not.  The spammer bombards the email server with thousands of combinations of common names.  Any test emails that are accepted mean the spammer can be confident that particular email address exists at that domain and can be a target for future spam.  Sometimes the directory harvesting is performed by other parties who then sell the lists of valid email address to spammers. Continue reading This is why you get spam emails»

Directory Harvesting is a term used to describe a technique used by spammers to discover valid email addresses, usually targeting corporate networks. Spammers try to use this technique to trick an email system into telling them which email addresses are valid and which are not, which allows them to increase their database of valid email addresses to send spam emails to.

Continue reading Protecting Exchange Server 2007 from Directory Harvesting Attacks»