Outlook Postmaster Crazy?

Question

Why do I get emails from Outlook Postmaster saying that emails that I have received from a 3rd party really came from me, and cannot be delivered!

Answer 1

Hi,

Thanks so much for reaching out to the Microsoft Community, that email mail you had received is understandably confusing.Please allow me to guide you with this scenario.

Just to clarify, does the Postmaster email show your actual address in the "From" field, or is it a variation like a subdomain? That can help us figure out if your account is being spoofed or if there’s a setup issue.

What’s likely happening is that someone’s faking your email address to send spam. When those messages bounce, the error gets sent back to you even though you didn’t send them. This is called backscatter, and it’s pretty common.

Your account probably hasn’t been hacked, but it’s a good idea to check your Sent folder and mail rules in Outlook.com, and review your recent activity at account.microsoft.com/security. If anything looks off, change your password and disable any unfamiliar access.

Also, avoid clicking links in those bounce messages, just to be safe. If you want to dig deeper, Microsoft has a helpful article on backscatter here.https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-office-365/anti-spam-backscatter-about

Hope this helps,

Best, Edward