Spam Text Messages with Spoofed Email Address

I’m posting this seperate from the spam text thread because I’m not sure it’s connected, but I have a suspicion.

For the last few weeks, I’ve randomly received an iMessage saying “stop” or, sometimes, with much rougher language. At first, I thought it was some kind of new scam tactic and ignored it. Then, this weekend, I started asking for people to send me the message they recieved.

It turns out, someone is spamming texts to sign up for various newsletters (one being mine with the same name and title). The spam text says "Complete your sign up to This Just In by Justin Cox! with a phishing link and my email address. According to the person who recieved this message and answered my response before blocking me, this was one of a few hundred similar texts they got today.

I don’t know where to start with this. The person’s phone number is not in my database, nor is their email. I checked Mailgun, and nothing was sent. So, I don’t think anything is compromised, but I’m concerned there might be a link to the spam sign ups earlier this year. Additionally, I don’t even know how to handle this or if there even is anything I can do.

Anyone have any ideas?

It sounds like someone is using your email in phishing attempts to sign people up for newsletters. To prevent misuse, check your domain’s DMARC, SPF, and DKIM records to ensure your email is properly authenticated.

Looks like there was an issue with DMARC in both CloudFlare and Mailgun. I also switched to Mailgun’s “automatic sender security” DKIM instead of the TXT record. Maybe that will help in the future.

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