Ghost Emails

[Kelleo]

Okay, something is kind of creeping me out here. Just today I started getting what I call ghost emails in my Yahoo account. It's an email that has no from address and no subject and it's blank when opened. But the email appears in the inbox/spam box.

Just what is this? Why am I getting this? It's not causing me any problems, but it's still...really creepy. ._.

 

[Almonds]

It's best if you don't open it if it's not something you recognize. There are certain emails that are for computer-damaging purposes, and it could be one of those horrible ones. It could contain a virus, or anything else that could damage your computer. So, to be safe, if you get any more emails like that, don't open it and just delete it straight from your computer.

Also, I'd recommend you to get your computer checked for viruses, just in case, since you said you opened one of those mails.

 

[Kelleo]

Don't worry, there aren't any damaging files or viruses or anything on my PC. My PC just finished its weekly scan that would pick up stuff like that and it found nothing. But I'm ignoring these emails from now on anyway.

 

[Feenie]

That's really creepy. Hopefully it'll just go away on its own.

 

[Kelleo]

It may already have, actually. I haven't gotten a ghost email today.

 

[Xenidal]

They're called "spoof e-mails" or "spoofing an e-mail address"... it's when someone sends an e-mail with a fake address / other information... it's done for various reasons, usually as part of a scam (changing the information to make it look like a reputable source) or other illegal activity (like a virus or malware) or just to spam people. I get them at times, never blank though... I've even gotten e-mails supposedly sent from my own e-mail address before, lol
As for why someone's doing that with an entirely blank e-mail, I have no idea unless it's malware but if your virus scanner found nothing then it's nothing (assuming that your virus scanner is up to date and the e-mail didn't contain some extremely new virus). Also I could be wrong, but I don't think that it's possible for viruses to be spread through webmail (browser-based e-mail). If I'm right about that then maybe it was a virus but was just never downloaded / didn't end up on your computer since you opened it on Yahoo in the browser as opposed to downloading it with Outlook or something.