When choosing a new email address (as I suggested in my previous post), be sure to use something that would not be easily guessed. Many spammers use a dictionary attack on domain names in order to try to guess email addresses. This often works, especially if your email address is a common name or word. For instance, my email address where I work is ken@<my work domain.com>; anyone using a dictionary attack on that domain would surely have my name listed — and I would get spam even if I never gave my address to anyone.

To thwart this type of spamming is easy. Don’t use a common name for your email address; rather, throw in special character or some numbers. Something like ken!g88@<email domain> isn’t going to be on anyone’s list. Likewise, your full name probably won’t be either.

Tags: spam, dictionary attack, guessed email address