I see a lot of bouncebacks these days of spam emails with a from: address apparently originating on our server, but not necessarily from a existing username. I had no idea there was a word for it - backscatter until i read this:

distefano links to a story on Computerworld, excerpting: "E-mail users are receiving an increasing number of bounceback spam, known as backscatter, and security experts say this kind of spam is growing. The bounceback e-mail messages come in at a trickle, maybe one or two every hour. The subject lines are disquieting: 'Cyails, Vygara nad Levytar,' 'UNSOLICITED BULK EMAIL, apparently from you.' You eye your computer screen; you're nervous. What's going on ? Have you been hacked? Are you some kind of zombie botnet spammer? Nope, you're just getting a little backscatter — bounceback messages from legitimate e-mail servers that have been fooled by the spammers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

[From 100 Email Bouncebacks - Welcome to Backscattering]

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