Question

is someone hacking my postfix email server?

Asked by: SW111

I've been noticing (not very frequent but disturbing nevertheless) some weird emails on our postfix setup.

Background: this is a relay server that we have deployed to retrieve and archieve all sent and received emails from all accounts. Our ISP does the actual sending.

The strange part is that on the "Sent" folder, every now and then, I see an email that is most definetely a spam. Which means this email is sent either via our relay server or via the ISP's account.

This email account is used by many employees, but I can't be sure if it actually originates from us.

So my question is: how do I know which computer station is sending the email? (Can I get the IP from the header?)

Thank You

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Asked On
2009-10-27 at 20:18:55ID24849634
Tags

postfix spam hacking

Topics

Postfix

,

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)

,

Spam Assassin

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
6

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Answers

 

by: admin0Posted on 2009-11-01 at 02:58:27ID: 25713278

Hi,

You can get all the info from the header of the email.
Look for the lines like Received: from to see from where the email originated.
If complication, you can post one such header here.

The server if its a realay, means that email could be due to a relay and it does not mean its being hacked.


Cheers,
Shashi

 

by: SW111Posted on 2009-11-01 at 20:38:03ID: 25717088


Hi Shashi,
Thanks for your reply. Here is the header that I've got:

Please note near the bottom where it says:
To: mycompany <company@mydomain.com>
From: Eusebia Schmelz <company@mydomain.com>

well, this Eusebia Schmelz <company@mydomain.com> is not from our company (has no relation whatsoever) but company@mydomain.com IS our email address......

what's going on?

Return-Path: <company@mydomain.com>
Delivered-To: backup@mydomain.com
Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1])
     by emailserver.mydomain.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD8746F41F0
     for <company@mydomain.com>; Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:00:39 +1000
X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at emailserver.mydomain.com
X-Spam-Flag: NO
X-Spam-Score: 2.813
X-Spam-Level: **
X-Spam-Status: No, score=2.813 tagged_above=2 required=6.31 tests=[AWL=-4.200,
     BAYES_99=3.5, HTML_MESSAGE=0.001, MIME_HTML_ONLY=1.457, RDNS_NONE=0.1,
     URIBL_BLACK=1.955]
Received: from emailserver.mydomain.com ([127.0.0.1])
     by localhost (emailserver.mydomain.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024)
     with ESMTP id 1O+NQPgQb0lT for <company@mydomain.com>;
     Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:00:24 +1000
Received: from emailserver.mydomain.com (localhost [127.0.0.1])
     by emailserver.mydomain.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B34956F41E8
     for <company@mydomain.com>; Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:00:24 +1000
Envelope-to: company@mydomain.com
Delivery-date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:00:25 +0700
Received: from mydomain.com [174.37.96.160]
     by emailserver.mydomain.com with IMAP (fetchmail-6.3.8)
     for <company@mydomain.com> (single-drop); Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:00:24 +1000
Received: from [81.30.93.100] (helo=asy42.as65.sol.superonline.com)
     by kepodang.uscentos.com with esmtp (Exim 4.69)
     (envelope-from <company@mydomain.com>)
     id 1N2Wfn-0001PJ-NP
     for company@mydomain.com; Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:00:24 +1000
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:00:12 +0200
To: mycompany <company@mydomain.com>
From: Eusebia Schmelz <company@mydomain.com>
Subject: May I kindly ask u?
Message-ID: <5T9L71UK8U68483J.QRUPSYPUID.217541CD5@b1784a5f38e7413>
X-Priority: 3
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8"
X-Spam-Bar: ++++

                                              
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by: admin0Posted on 2009-11-12 at 18:57:12ID: 25811039

Hi,

The email originated from: 81.30.93.100.

Here are a few links for you to understand to parse the headers:  
http://kb.mediatemple.net/questions/892/Understanding+an+Email+Header

Here are a few online analyzers that can parse email headers, you need to copy paste the header into the box and let them analyze

http://www.mxtoolbox.com/Public/Tools/EmailHeaders.aspx
http://www.levinecentral.com/mail_parse/default.aspx


Cheers,
Shashi

 

by: SW111Posted on 2009-11-12 at 19:13:04ID: 25811107

Admin0 Thanks for the links.

This IP is definetely not ours. I tried http://whois.domaintools.com/81.30.93.100 and was given the following result (see code snippet).

Apparently it is from belarus.

So what can I do about this? Are they just pretending to be us or did they actually break into our server? (And how did it end up in our sent email folder?)

What do we do now?

inetnum:        81.30.93.0 - 81.30.93.255
netname:        BEST-NET-1
mnt-routes:     AGS-MNT
mnt-lower:      AGS-MNT
descr:          "BeST" CJSC
country:        BY
admin-c:        AGS95-RIPE
tech-c:         AGS95-RIPE
status:         ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by:         AGS-MNT
source:         RIPE # Filtered
 
person:         Andrew Sokolovski
address:        The Republic of Belarus
address:        Krasnoarmeyskay, Str 24
phone:          +375 25 909 05 50
fax-no:         +375 17 206 58 86
e-mail:         
nic-hdl:        AGS95-RIPE
mnt-by:         AGS-MNT
source:         RIPE # Filtered
 
route:          81.30.93.0/24
descr:          all best
origin:         AS44087
mnt-by:         AGS-MNT
source:         RIPE # Filtered

                                              
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by: admin0Posted on 2009-11-12 at 22:18:15ID: 25811781

Hi,

I am not sure on how it came on your sent account folder.
Do you have pop access ? I mean is there any POP access enabled in the server.

Also one possibility is:

1. They use the From: company@mydomain.com  and say To: company@mydomain.com   BCC: abc@hotmail.com,  123@yahoo.com etc
Now, the message from yahoo will be bounced back to your server saying:  123 does not exist at yahoo. Then again, if company@mydomain.com is not configured in your server, your server will again send an email back to yahoo saying company@ does not exist.  The email on your sent could be a backscatter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_(e-mail)

Check out this also: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/145449/100_email_bouncebacks_youve_been_backscattered.html


Cheers,
Shashi

 

by: SW111Posted on 2009-11-13 at 00:41:36ID: 31646775

Yes, it does offer POP access.

It seems probable that this backscatter issue is the cause since I'm not ***sending*** anymore of these emails....

I suppose there's nothing I can do about it then.

Thanks Admin0

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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