How to stop Voicemail email spam

What is Voicemail email spam

Voicemail email spam is one of many email spam campaigns employed by cybercriminals around the web. It is designed to make users believe they received an actual voice message. One such email letter that got under our observation displayed information caller’s name, number, and also the duration of the voicemail. In order to open this voicemail, users are given instructions to click on the button (“Preview voicemail”) or link and enter their log-in details (email address and password). While such email letters may vary in their content, the purpose usually remains the same – to urge inexperienced users into entering their log-in credentials on a phishing page or downloading some malicious file/program. Please note that entering personal data on such websites is dangerous and will most likely expose your log-in credentials to cybercriminals. If the entered details are correct, this will allow cybercriminals to hijack associated accounts and steal them afterward. The stolen accounts may therefore be used for scamming other people by impersonating the account owner’s name, for instance, on various social media. And since such people may identify the user as a person they already know, they are more likely to perform actions requested by cybercriminals (e.g., lend money, open a malicious link/file, and so forth). Furthermore, cybercriminals may also attempt to access banking-related accounts and perform unauthorized transfers of money. If you became a victim of voicemail email or other spam techniques, immediately change your passwords for accounts that might be in danger. It is highly recommended to create different passwords for each account in use as it will decrease the risk of major account loss/damage in case of a password leak. Read our guide below to find out about how fraudulent schemes tend to infect systems; what one should do if he detects a scam; if an e-mail is continuously under consistent spam attacks; and other steps to keep your e-mail spam-free.

Voicemail e-mail spam (Thunderbird)

Voicemail e-mail spam (Apple Mail)

How spam letters tend to infect users

Voicemail email spam letters is only one out of countless other email fraud examples (Dropbox email scam; Your Norton subscription has expired today; McAfee Subscription Has Expired; OpenSea e-mail scam, and so forth). Although such type of scams is not initially designed to carry system infections, some campaigns actually do. The most common occurrence is when cybercriminals send fake letters with malicious attachments (MS Office documents, PDFs, Executables, Archives, JavaScript files, etc.) or links. Threat actors make such letters look as if they were sent by legitimate and widely-known firms. This way, they dupe inexperienced users into opening the malicious content attached to them. While all of these file formats have nothing to do with malware on the original basis, fraudulent figures misuse their technical properties for injecting and deploying infection once they are opened. Some scam messages claim you have won a prize, which can be ostensibly retrieved by following certain links and entering details. In the majority of cases, anything suspicious like this is most probably a scam designed to trick you. Avoid trusting them and protect yourself with the tools and methods we have presented in the article below.

1. Download Anti-Spam and Anti-Malware Tools
2. Mark unwanted e-mail messages as Spam
3. Delete Spam letters
4. Unsubscribe from e-mail campaigns
5. Change your e-mail address and forward it
6. Final tips

1. Mark e-mail as Spam

If an e-mail message has not been put to the “spam” or “junk” folder itself, then users can do it themselves in just a couple of steps. Marking e-mail as spam will let your e-mail service know how to treat the unwanted sender next time. All further messages received from the spam-marked address will be located in the appropriate folder already without your help. Here is how:

Gmail:

1. Open your Gmail and find a message you want to classify as “spam”.
2. Select this message by clicking on the square box next to it.
3. Then, click on the stop sign icon (the one with an exclamation mark) on top.

Yahoo! Mail:

1. Open your Yahoo! Mail and find a message you want to classify as “spam”.
2. Select this message by clicking on the square box next to it.
3. Then, click on the Spam icon on top.

Microsoft Outlook:

1. Open your Yahoo! Mail and find a message you want to classify as “spam”.
2. Select this message by clicking on the square box next to it.
3. Then, click on Junk and Block afterward.

Apple Mail:

1. Open your Apple Mail and find a message you want to classify as “spam”.
2. Click on it and choose the Junk Mail (trash can with “X”) icon.

2. Delete Spam letters

You can also clear your “spam” or “junk” folder from all the collected such letters. It is always good to maintain your e-mail clean and without trash that clutters even your spam folders. This is how you can wipe it:

Gmail:

1. Open your Gmail and go to Spam on sidebar.
2. If you want to wipe all the spam letters at once, click Delete All Spam Messages Now.
3. If you want to do it selectively, click on the message you need and choose Delete forever.

Yahoo! Mail:

1. Open your Yahoo! Mail and navigate to Spam on the sidebar.
2. Choose e-mails you want to remove and click Delete on top.

Microsoft Outlook:

1. Open your Microsoft Outlook and navigate to Junk Email on the sidebar.
2. Then, click on Empty folder to clear all spam messages.

Apple Mail:

1. Open your Apple Mail and navigate to Spam on the sidebar.
2. Choose e-mails you want to remove and click the Trash can icon on top.

3. Unsubscribe from e-mail campaigns

Many websites offer users to enter their e-mail address in exchange for exclusive content notifications, and tons of other marketing stuff. Over some time, regular users can subscribe to multiple resources that bombard your inbox and spam folder with continuous messages. This can be stopped by unsubscribing to them. Many messages, if opened, have a small gray hyperlink or button “Unsubscribe”. Clicking on it should unsubscribe you from letters you have been receiving for some time. Note that some intentionally malicious letters may use fake “Unsubscribe” buttons to deceive users into downloading malware or visiting suspicious pages. Therefore, remember to always stay on alert!

You can also do the following to unsubscribe to multiple newsletters in Gmail at once:

1. Open your Gmail and type Unsubscribe into the search box on top.
2. Then, click on the Show search options icon on the right end of the search box.
3. Click on Create filter and select checkboxes next to Delete it and Apply filter to matching conversations.
4. After selecting, finish by clicking on Create filter.

This will lead to all previously subscribed messages evaporating from your flood list in seconds. No more letters of such will appear in your Inbox or other folders again.

4. Change your e-mail address and forward it

It is sometimes hard to get rid of all spam in case of an e-mail breach. Receiving unreasonably high numbers of spam could mean your e-mail was leaked to large masses of spamming campaigns grateful to use it. Victims of this can quite easily avoid it by creating a new e-mail address and forwarding incoming e-mails from their old address. Don’t worry, this will not redirect abnormal streams of spam to this new address, but only normal messages you received on your behalf. It is also worth notifying people you had close contact with that you changed your e-mail address, so they do not get scared after receiving a message from an unknown address.

1. First, you should begin with creating a new account for the e-mail service you use (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, or Apple Mail).
2. Then, log back into your old account, go to Settings and Add a forwarding address. In Gmail, these settings can be found in the Forwarding POP/IMAP tab. Something similar should be in other services as well.
3. Enter the newly created e-mail address and click Next > Proceed > OK.
4. You will then receive a verification message in that newly created address. Make sure you click on it.

If you also want to forward a copy of already existing e-mails, do the following:

1. Go back to the settings page for the Gmail account you want to forward messages from, and refresh your browser.
2. Navigate to Forwarding and POP/IMAP and select Forward a copy of incoming mail to.
3. Choose what you want to happen with the Gmail copy of your emails. It is recommended to choose Keep Gmail’s copy in the Inbox. Click Save changes at the end.

All done and dusted! Now, all new messages tied to the previous e-mail will be sent to your new address.

Final tips

There is always a good practice to have personal and business e-mail accounts separately. If you are active on forums, Q&A sites, participate in link building you will probably need another account for that. Major e-mail services and applications like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Apple Mail and Outlook already have strong built-in anti-spam technologies, however, we recommend special software like MailWasher Pro to fight spam campaigns like Voicemail e-mail spam.