Strange email from CoalaWeb?

Written by Steven Palmer Wednesday, 13 May 2015

I'm currently the victim of what's know as a 'spoofing' or 'Joe Job' attack. Spoofing means faking the return address on outgoing mail to hide the true origin of the message.

Quote from Google

When you send a letter through the post, you generally write a return address on the envelope so the recipient can identify the sender, and so the post office can return the mail to the sender in the event of a problem. But nothing prevents you from writing a different return address than your own; in fact, someone else could send a letter and put your return address on the envelope.

Email works the same way. When a server sends an email message, it specifies the sender, but this sender field can be forged. If there is a problem with delivery and someone forged your address on the message, then the message will be returned to you, even if you weren't the actual sender.

Email Example

These emails appear to be sent with the subject Part 1, Part 2 etc. with an accompanying compressed attachment similar to this:

email spoof example

Not from CoalaWeb

The short answer is I'm not the sender of these spam emails and I do not have your name on a list.

What can you do?

You can help stop these spammers by sending the full headers of these unlawful messages to the Federal Trade Commission at .

Example email for the FTC


Email subject: I was sent this spoofed email 

To whom it may concern, 

This email has been sent with a spoofed return email address. The IP address used has no affiliation with the email address  or the domain coalaweb.com. 

I have attached the full header of the message to provided more information. 

Sincerely, 

YOUR NAME

Unfortunately I have very little control over these types of spam emails but I'm trying to be as proactive as possible and I thank you in advance for you help and understanding.

Steven Palmer