Malware, Phishing and Spam Emails. Responsibility

[LUKE451]

So fed up of the volume of Malware, Phishing and Spam Emails every day. I do not appear to be able to stop these despite blocking them, reporting these but still they arrive from the same email address. Norton Advance does very little to make a difference either.

I just wonder who`s Responsibility is it to address the problem and help?

Is it a BT issue with our email through Outlook 365 or is it a Microsoft issue?

Yesterday received 194 in total 36 all from in-reply * bmstores.co.uk . This address has been blocked reported and still arrive today.

We are now at the point of changing to another service provider and cancelling BT phoneline, broadband and both mobiles.

Luke451

[gg30340]

Nobody is "responsible" as such for preventing spam, that is other than those who send it. 

BT supply you with an email service as part of your broadband service. Within that service, they like all email service providers try and filter spam out of the email system but it is an ongoing battle and invariably the email providers are always playing catch up against the spammers who are constantly finding ways to circumvent the email providers spam filters.

See link.

https://www.bt.com/help/email/email-security/how-to-deal-with-spam-in-bt-email

There is lots of information on the Internet regarding spam and how to try and stop it and prevent getting it in the first place.

As an example see this link.

https://www.malwarebytes.com/cybersecurity/basics/how-to-stop-spam-emails

Just to give you an idea of the volume of the spam problem, world wide there is on average over 100 billion spam emails sent on a daily basis.

If it was easy to prevent them the worlds Email Providers would have done it by now.

As regards changing providers, there are very few ISPs who now supply an email service to its customers. In 2022 BT stopped providing email accounts to new customers.

If it is only because of the email spam issue that you want to move away from BT you could always stop using your BT email account and set up a free email account such as gmail or one of the other free providers or you could subscribe to an email service. There are plenty providers that you will find with an Internet search. 

As regards blocking the spam emails. The email address and domain that you see is most likely a spoofed email address and not the originating email address or domain.

You need to view the headers of the email not just hover your mouse over the name that is showing.

To do that you need to tick the box to the left of the email title in the email list then go to "More" in the menu bar then select "View Source". Then look down the page that opens until you find the spammers domain which you then block by adding it to your "Block Senders" list manually.

You can block a domain by logging onto your BTMail account using a browser, not an email client/app, and then click on your username at the right hand side. Select "Settings" then go to the left hand side and select "Mail". Scroll down and click on "Blocked Senders".

When the Blocked Senders list opens enter the domain ie bloggs.com into the Email box then click save.

[WSH]

Part of the problem is that people are far too ready to give out their email.  OK, a lot of places demand an email these days but that doesn’t mean you have to give them your main email.  Give them a throw-away email and then promote them later, if they deserve it.

I’ve had three ISP independent emails for the last 25 years, as I got tired of changing email every time I changed ISP back in the day.  One is for family, one is for home business stuff (utilities, banks that sort of thing) and one is for the other rubbish.

The first two hardly ever attract spam etc.  The third one, well that only gets rubbish at the best of times, (even the legit stuff is questionable).  Quick enough to scan down the inbox and delete en-masse.  It’s also set to text only, so good luck getting anything ify to run if I do look at something.

I also have throw-away addresses with other providers.  The email associated with this account is one of the more stable ones but if it becomes a problem it can be deleted altogether, as it has nothing to do with the three above!

[LUKE451]

Thanks for the information and suggestions. Will check everything out. All ready hover over the address to see who`s hiding under the name.

[iniltous]

Not sure I can see your logic , change provider and get an email address from them obviously that new email address initially won’t be ‘known’ so the level of spam decreases in the short term ,  this of course means you stop using and looking at  your existing @ btinternet address , meaning you need to contact all your genuine contacts with your new email address , so only spam goes to your ‘old’ address , but you can achieve that without moving provider , creating a new BT email address , using a different (free) email provider, or even getting your own ‘domain’  , if your reason for changing provider is  ’punishment’ for your perceived lack of action from BT regarding spam emails , you will be eventually disappointed with whatever email provider you end up with , your suggestion that BT are ‘worse’ than others at blocking these things is misinformed, in fact many on here complain that BT block too many genuine emails, I’d be more inclined to discover  what  the reason is you get so many ( I get effectively none at all on my BT email address  ) yet we both have the same email provider.

[gg30340]

@LUKE451 

Hovering over the email address does not give you all the information needed to block the address and domain. 

Hovering is only usefull to check to see what is displayed in the address field is the same as the hover information.