If you have received email from a chccfamily.org email address, and you do not know the sender, or you did not ask for the email to be sent to you, you are probably a victim of unsolicited email or SPAM.

The email is probably the result of email spoofing, and likely has not actually originated from any of our legitimate email accounts on the domain chccfamily.org. Email spoofing is currently a widespread nuisance, and we too are daily victims of spoofing, receiving numerous emails, often containing viruses or trojans, from apparently legitimate email addresses. Our CHCC computers all have current and properly configured anti-virus software, and our web host also uses anti-virus and anti-spam screening tools when processing emails. More information on spoofing may be found at http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/email_spoofing.html.

A simple analysis of the email(s) you've received from a chccfamily.org email address will assist in confirming whether or not the emails you have received are spoofs. The data below shows the details of a test email I sent to one of my personal email addresses (xxxxxxx@xxx.net) from my CHCC email address, rightseeker@chccfamily.org. These details were extracted by opening the received email in Microsoft Outlook, then selecting "View" and "Options..." from the message menu bar.  Microsoft Outlook Express and other email clients have similar features to permit viewing this Internet header data.

Once the "Message Options" window opens, there is a section showing Internet headers and that is where the below data came from. If you analyze the data below (pertinent info in red), you'll see that in this case the mail was received from a mail server at rapidsite.net, which provides mail services for our web hosting company. The mail server at rapidsite.net received the message from www.chccfamily.org at an IP address of 207.57.24.4, which is our hosted web space IP address.

ANY GENUINE EMAIL YOU RECEIVE FROM A LEGITIMATE CHCCFAMILY.ORG EMAIL ADDRESS SHOULD SHOW ORIGINATION FROM BOTH A RAPIDSITE MAIL SERVER AND THE DOMAIN IP ADDRESS 207.57.24.4.

More comments after the data:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Received: from 128.121.64.102 ([172.18.12.133])
by vms047.mailsrvcs.net (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-4.02 (built Sep
9 2005)) with ESMTP id <0IYU00CZ9JPCKAB0@vms047.mailsrvcs.net> for
xxxxxxx@xxx.net; Sat, 06 May 2006 08:48:48 -0500 (CDT)

Received: from mail14e.g14.rapidsite.net (128.121.64.102)
by sv13pub.verizon.net (MailPass SMTP server v1.2.0 - 112105154401JY+PrW)
with SMTP id <4-10503-162-10503-5066-1-1146923327> for vms047pub.verizon.net;
Sat, 06 May 2006 08:48:48 -0500

Received: from mx06.mlpsca01.us.mxservers.net (128.121.64.131)
by mail14e.g14.rapidsite.net (RS ver 1.0.95vs) with SMTP id 0-087903325 for
<xxxxxxx@xxx.net>; Sat, 06 May 2006 09:48:46 -0400 (EDT)

Received: from www.chccfamily.org [207.57.24.4] (EHLO DAD)
by mx06.mlpsca01.us.mxservers.net (mxl_mta-1.3.8-10p4)
with ESMTP id d39ac544.1885.120.mx06.mlpsca01.us.mxservers.net; Sat,
06 May 2006 09:48:45 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Sat, 06 May 2006 09:48:36 -0400

From: "Rightseeker, CHCC Family Webservant" <rightseeker@chccfamily.org>
Subject: test
X-Originating-IP: [128.121.64.102]
To: "xxxxx" <xxxxxxx@xxx.net>
Reply-to: <rightseeker@chccfamily.org>
Message-id: <004801c67113$c92d62f0$6401a8c0@DAD>
Organization: Colonial Heights Church of Christ
MIME-version: 1.0
X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2527
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.6626
Content-type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0049_01C670F2.421E33F0"
Importance: Normal
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
X-MSMail-priority: Normal
X-Spam: [F=0.0100000000; heur=0.500(700); stat=0.010;
spamtraq-heur=0.500(2006050522)]
X-MAIL-FROM: <rightseeker@chccfamily.org>
X-SOURCE-IP: [207.57.24.4]
X-Loop-Detect: 1
X-DistLoop-Detect: 1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


If you examine the Internet header information the next time you receive unsolicited email from any chccfamily.org email address, you will probably discover that the mail didn't originate from a rapidsite.net mail server or from www.chccfamily.org (207.57.24.4).

If - after checking the header data as described above - you find that you DID actually receive unsolicited email from a chccfamily.org email address, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know.  Please forward the email to me at rightseeker@chccfamily.org, or paste the Internet header information into the email you send so that I may have a look at it. I should be able to track down the source of the email if I have the Internet header data from the messages.