eMail Scanning/Spamming???
On Saturday, one of our servers was sent over 100,000 emails. The emails were sent to username@domainname.com -- where username appeared to be a sequence of names drawn from a list. The names started in the A's and went through to the Z's using common names, e.g. Jake, Sam, Samantha, John, etc. Also, a list of common business/computer names were scanned, e.g. info, feedback, webmaster, admin, etc.
Questions
Has anyone experienced similar scans/spamming?
What is the intent of this type of scanning/spamming?
My guess is that people are simply using bots to compile email lists. Do to the way our server handles email spools, I do not think this would create a DoS attack.
We are currently dissecting message headers, but the sending address appears to be spoofed as well as the MTA. Runs through spam cop and other such utilities provide no clues.
