Suddenly I am receiving 50 spam emails/day. When will it stop? Shall I just delete my email address?

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What I am interested in is how to stop it? Is there any way to make these emails stop?

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Have to start this off by saying that you are not going to be happy with this answer but can only provide an answer based on what you asked

#1 - Can you <stop> it? Sadly the answer is: NO.

Somewhere, somehow, your email address has been harvested from somewhere. The <haveIbeenpwned> site is by no means intended to be 100% comprehensive

#2 - Re: "I am blocking every single one of them, and reporting as a spam but it's time consuming and frustrating"

a) Important to note that this does not result in anything immediate happening. This is accumulated and based on a number of factors such as how many other people report the same thing, the Outlook.com Junk filter gets updated

b) for information, if these messages are being delivered to your <Junk> folder, those are already considered <blocked> so there is no purpose as marking these as <Junk>. There is no option to prevent something from being <delivered> to your <mailbox>

c) if these junk messages are being delivered to your <Inbox> AND these messages have some common keywords, you can create an <Inbox> rule using the following settings

Condition: <Message header includes>

Value: ***whatever value you are looking for***

Action: <Delete>

Use inbox rules in Outlook.com

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/use-in...

This link will bring you to the <Inbox> rules

https://outlook.live.com/mail/0/options/mail/rules

(*** rules do not work for anything delivered to the <Junk> folder)

d) Creating a new account etc

There's no guarantee that you won't run into the same thing at some point. Also, just as a FYI, I have multiple Outlook.com accounts and not one of them receives any kind of <Junk> email *and I do mean "none". By the same token, I have a couple of other personal accounts (non-Microsoft) that get bombarded every day. I could cancel the accounts but the effort to do that is just not worth it (for me). Have opted to live with it.

Wish I could give you some kind of magic solution but the fact is that spam is the bane of everyone's existence these days

Hello Dóra

Hi, I'm Karl and will be happy to help you today.

Are you referring to something specific in terms of "My email address has been compromised" or is that referring to a "suspicious"?

The following is a standard reply I give to those who ask about a sudden increase in <spam> and <unexpected> log in attempts describing how email addresses are harvested which you may find of interest. If your email address has been included in a compromised database as explained below, changing your email address will suffer the same fate at some point if you use it to sign up for anything.

The usual source of a sudden increase in failed login attempts or spam mail received is that the email address was harvested by a hacker who breached a data base on a website where you subscribed to something. That database gets repeatedly sold to other hackers/spammers on the dark web.

Many people think that hackers penetrate the actual Microsoft servers to gain access to email accounts when that isn't the case. Instead they gain access to an actual account via any number of other ways including phishing emails.

You can check to see if the email address comes up on a breached database on the following website created/run by Microsoft MVP Troy Hunt.

https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Pwned websites

https://haveibeenpwned.com/PwnedWebsites#Epik

Other articles that may be of interest

The 773 Million Record "Collection #1" Data Breach

https://www.troyhunt.com/the-773-million-record...

How Do Spammers Get My Email Address?

https://www.lifewire.com/how-do-spammers-get-my...

Protect your privacy on the internet

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/409145...

Protect yourself from phishing

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/pro...

*** if you find that the email address was on a breached website where a password was also entered, what you really do want to do is make sure that the same email address/password combination is NOT being used on other sites (i.e. Social Media, Facebook, Paypal, Amazon etc) and if that password is still the one being used on your email account - make sure to change it immediately. Not a question of <IF> a hacker will test those account(s) - just a matter of <WHEN>

Required Forum Disclaimer: Some of the above links are non-Microsoft websites. The pages appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the site that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the site before you decide to download and install it.

Hi Karl,

Thank you for your message.

What I am interested in is how to stop it? Is there any way to make these emails stop?

I am blocking every single one of them, and reporting as a spam but it's time consuming and frustrating.

Will this ever stop or shall I just make a new email address?

I have not subscribed /clicked on any suspicious link or website so I am quite clueless.

Thank you for your reply!

You're welcome - worry for not being able to provide you with a magic bullet.

Hi Karl,

Thank you for your straightforward reply! I have this account since 2016 and have never received any spam before. I never give this email address to anyone, I have a separate 'subscription' email account, and one for the less important things... so I am quite speechless and do not know what happened this week.

Anyway, I will keep deleting the things, but I can't do this in the long run. Unfortunately the final solution will be too get rid of this account and create another one. :(

Once again, thank you for your time and replies.

Have a lovely Saturday,

Dora