I keep getting e-mail in my inbox that is not addressed to me. Sometimes these e-mails are from my friends, and other times I have no idea what they are about. Why do I get them?
The three most likely reasons why you have received an e-mail that is not addressed to you are:
- You are not the main recipient, but are on the CC: list.
- You were BCC’ed.
- The e-mail is spam and the recipient address is forged.
The first two options are likely if you know the person who sent the message. If you do not know them, or the message contains advertisements, foreign language, or gibberish, then it probably falls under case 3.
You are not the main recipient
You might not be the main recipient of the e-mail, but the sender copied you. The CC: field allows a person to send an e-mail to people who are not directly addressed by its content, but might still need to see the message. The e-mail is delivered to the person or people in the To: field as well as everyone in the Carbon Copy (CC) list.
You were BCC’ed
If you do not see your e-mail address anywhere but still recognize either the sender or the message’s content, you may be included in the BCC list. BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy, and is a tool for people who need to send messages with confidential recipients. A person who receives a BCC e-mail cannot see who the message was sent to. A common method of sending out a Blind Carbon Copy is to address the e-mail to yourself, and list all the other recipients in the BCC field.
The e-mail is spam and the headers are forged
Spammers are always trying new tricks in order to get through e-mail filters. One of them that pops up every once-in-a-while is forging the recipients. If you receive an unsolicited e-mail that does not have a CC: list or BCC: field, it is probably spam. The sender purposely changed the To: field in order to fool your spam filter.
A similar method I have observed quite often is forging the name of someone else on your domain into the To: field. If you have an e-mail address on a domain with a lot of other users, such as your company’s domain name, you may receive e-mails that appear to be addressed to co-workers. In this case the spammer has both you and your co-worker’s e-mail addresses in their database, and they are trying to fool both you and your spam filter by sending you a message that appears to be addressed to someone you know. This is a simple forgery. And as is always the case with spam either delete it or report it, and move on.
