Excessive Amount of Spam

Question

Excessive Amount of Spam

Neil P 0

Since AI was introduced I have been receiving large amounts of Spam sometimes 40+ a day, how do I stop them. #Office for Mac Spam.

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2 answers

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Answer 1

For Outlook on Mac, the most effective steps are:

Use Junk Email protection in Outlook for Mac
- In Outlook for Mac, go to Tools > Junk Email Preferences.
- Add trusted senders or domains on the Safe Senders tab.
- Add unwanted senders or domains on the Blocked Senders tab.
- For supported non-Exchange accounts, Outlook can also mark messages as junk or block the sender from the inbox by right-clicking the message and choosing Junk Mail > Mark as Junk or Block Sender.
If the mailbox is Exchange-based, use Outlook on the web junk settings
- Exchange accounts, including Outlook.com and work email hosted by Exchange, do not use local Junk Email Preferences in Outlook for Mac.
- In Outlook on the web, go to Settings > Mail > Junk email.
- Under Safe senders and domains, add trusted addresses or domains so they do not go to Junk.
- Blocked senders and domains can also be edited there.
Do not rely only on blocking one sender at a time
- Spam often comes from changing addresses, so blocking individual senders may not stop the overall volume.
- Reporting messages as junk/phishing and using rules for repeated patterns can help when the sender keeps changing.
Reduce future spam exposure
- Do not reply to spam, including unsubscribe requests from unknown senders.
- Keep automatic picture downloads blocked, because external content can confirm that the address is active.
- Be cautious about posting the email address publicly and about sites that preselect consent to share email addresses.
If legitimate mail is going to Junk
- Add the sender to Safe Senders.
- For non-Exchange accounts in Outlook for Mac, saved contacts are not classified as junk.

Important:

Junk email protection in Outlook for Mac is available for supported accounts except Exchange.
For Exchange-based accounts, junk filtering is handled on the server, so changes must be made in Outlook on the web rather than in Outlook for Mac preferences.

References:

Answer 2

This does not necessarily mean your Microsoft account has been compromised and I don't think it has anything to do with AI. I think your email address can be exposed due to data breach. This is so common these days. You use your email address to sign up for services, and if one of them is involved in a data breach, your email address is out there. Doesn't mean your account is being accessed, meaning, your address can be in the dark web, sold for marketing purposes, etc.

If the increase was very sudden. For example, if you normally received a few junk messages and then suddenly started receiving hundreds of newsletter registrations, account confirmations, or messages in different languages, you should take it more seriously. This can be a spam bomb, also called subscription bombing. This actually happened to me a few years ago, but with my Gmail address at that time.

In a subscription/newsletter signup-bombing attack, someone enters your email address into large numbers of legitimate websites and mailing lists, often using an automated script. Those websites then send genuine registration or confirmation messages to your address. More importantly, sometimes the flood is intentionally created to hide one important email among hundreds of unimportant ones. In my case back then, it was because my CapitalOne credit card was compromised and was used by someone to make a big order at the Apple store. They were really hoping that the CapitalOne and Apple confirmation emails were hidden among the spam emails that suddenly flooded my inbox. Luckily I saw that. In fact, I also got a sudden increase of text messages confirming newsletter sign-ups from many sources too. Same, they were hoping I wouldn't then notice the alert CapitalOne sent me.

Therefore, if this started suddenly, I would not simply mass-delete everything. Search the messages carefully for terms such as order, purchase, payment, transaction, password, reset, security alert, verification, bank, PayPal, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and the names of any financial institutions or shopping accounts you use.

Such behavior is actually documented. See the one shared by the Swiss Government: https://www.bacs.admin.ch/en/26w6-en

As for how to stop these emails. Unfortunately, there's no easy way. You will have to unsubscribe each one using the link at the bottom of the email. It will take time for this to eventually die down. For my situation with Gmail, it took weeks for them to eventually go back to normal. Even as of today, I still occassionly received some random newsletter sign up confirmation emails.