Auto Assembly Spam Attack Update #1

Hi everyone,

Many of us here at the convention (myself, Deputy and supremo Billy Edwards and our tech-wizard Steve Mapes) have been working hard behind the scenes to track down the source of the spam attacks that many of you have been suffering from since last night from one of our email addresses that we use for Auto Assembly and rather than staying silent we want to try to keep all of you updated as much as possible with regards to how things are progressing.

1. While we are still trying to identity how everyone’s email details have been obtained, we have taken steps to ensure that we have tightened security on our email account with a complete reset of all of our passwords.
2. We do know that none of the emails themselves have been sent directly from this end so what we have managed to do is identify the fact that they are being sent from an external site / source that is using the Auto Assembly email address as a mask for their real address, in the same way that many forums assign a contact email address which is then used as the apparent email address that all communications are sent from. We have been receiving error reports from failed emails but this is the only record that we have seen of these.
3. In looking at some of the emails that have been sent, these have not been sent from a secure system and we have already identified at least two different countries where they have been sent from – Germany and Africa – and we will be contacting our ISP shortly to ascertain what additional security measures can be put in place with our account to block any use of our email address unless it is from an authorised location.
4. While we do have documents waiting to be emailed to all of our attendees, we will not be sending out any further bulk emails to attendees from autoassembly@aol.com until we make a further announcement here on the website so if you receive such an email, please delete it without opening it.
5. If any of you have accidentally clicked on any links in emails you have received, please run a full scan of your system using any virus checkers you may have installed on your PC. While these spam emails may be just advertising links, we would still advise a full virus check as a precaution.
6. We will not be sending out any further confirmation emails for the next few days until we have tightened up security on our outgoing mail. While we don’t anticipate any particular issues here, we would prefer to play things safe in this respect.
7. If you need to contact us urgently, or wish to report further spam attacks, please do so via Facebook or preferably through the Auto Assembly Forum where our team will be on hand to answer any other questions you may have about the convention.
8. As you will all be aware, all emails that are sent out from the convention – whichever email address we use –  all feature our standard email “signature” at the end of them and many emails often contain detailed information from us. If you ever receive emails claiming to be from Auto Assembly but you are suspicious, please get in touch.

Please keep an eye on the website, Twitter and Facebook for regular updates over the next few days as we keep you posted on our progress to rectifying this and please share with as many people as possible so we can keep all our attendees – past, present, and future – abreast of what is happening.

Regards,

Simon Plumbe
Auto Assembly Committee Head