Spam messages have always been a headache but what if spammers use your mail id to send spam to you and others? This is what happened to me last night. There were 10 sent unread mails from my account in the Sent folder in Gmail, which I never composed. All ten mails were sent to me from my account only.

What’s Happening? : Spammers have attacked the public in a new way. They use your mail address to send you spam. When the mail arrives in your inbox, the spam bots filters them and move them to Spam folder cleaning up your inbox. Good enough! But as those mails have been sent from your mail id, Gmail also puts them in the sent folder also marked up as unread. We still are not sure that - Is Gmail adding those mails to sent folder? OR Someone has got access to my account? Note: The above theory is only an assumption, I have taken.

And if those mails are added to Sent folder by Gmail, then I guess that it is a major bug in Gmail.

How can spammers send me a mail without accessing my account? : Well I must tell you, this is a major loop hole in mailing system. It is very easy to send a mail from anyone’s mail id to any other person. All you need to have is your own domain setup, some smart scripts and a tricky mind.

Is there anyway to stop all this? : Well not yet. Just keep changing your Google Account password every week and create stronger one’s (more than 8 characters) each time. If its a bug in Gmail then Googlers should immediately act on it, Otherwise this may create a big problem for millions of Gmail users.

What do you say? : I’m looking for comments to this post. What do you think - Smart Spammer OR bug in Gmail?