Need email help
lhill
334 Posts
Does anyone know how to trace the sender of an email from a yahoo.com or hotmail.com mailbox? Several employees have received harrassing emails from, we think, an ex-employee, but don't know how to find out for sure. I know we can pay for this service, but is it anything I can do for myself?
Comments
Ok, this will get a little tricky, but be patient with me. If you think the email originated from a work computer (although the person used Hotmail or whatever), it is easier to trace.
If using Outlook, open the message and then click View, Options. A box will pop-up and you will see a field that says "Internet Headers". It will all look like gobbly gook with numbers and text, but scroll through it and look for this string:
Received: from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (xxx.xxx.xxx [12.345.678.90])
The x's will tell you the domain, the numbers represent the IP address. Call your IT folks and ask them if that IP adress is in your domain, if so, who's work station. You've got your culprit.
If it was sent from outside of work, say from home, it gets trickier. The above may or may not revel infor about the user. For example, I use Comcast, here is what would show had I sent that email even if from a Hotmail account:
Received: from reynadesktop (pcp08694745pcs.500ash01.tn.comcast.net[69.137.100.107])
I hope this helps.
You can always copy all the text into notepad and forward it as an attachment to [email]abuse@hotmail.com[/email] or [email]abuse@yahoo.com[/email] They will get shut down. They will not tell you who sent it.
P.S. I just pinged midsouthsynergy and see that your web server's IP is 208.21.201.21 so something with all but the last 2 sets of digits being the same as the IP I just typed above will tell you if the anonymous "hotmailer" is really inside your domain or not.
I hope this helps.
Gene