From Email not showing properly and Contact Form Spam?

[mask2011]

We recently moved our Zen Cart deployment from a US hosting company to a more regional one. The easiest way to do this was ofcourse to do a clean install and make the necessary configuration adjustments, which is exactly what we did.

Unfortunately, we now appear to be experiencing 2 problems, and I'm starting to wonder whether they are related:

1) We've been receiving odd spam on our mail-account, which originate from the Contact Us form. We did get some questions posted to us before whether we would be interested in certain suppliers, but never before was the text scrambled like the ones we're getting repeatedly now. Below is an example of one such email we received recently:

From: ttezbuczbu
Email: [email protected]

------------------------------------------------------

9ynlm7 czcinpqnqozm, isagkzhdgpfh,
[link=http://lguhizqffekv.com/]lguhizqffekv[/link], http://izfmjsjkltqr.com/

------------------------------------------------------

Office Use Only:
From: ttezbuczbu
Email: [email protected]
Login Name: Not logged in
Login Email: Not logged in
IP Address: 95.65.74.220 - 95.65.74.220
Host Address: 95-65-74-220.starnet.md
Date and Time: Mon Oct 25 2010 15:03:23 SGT

2) The other thing we've been noticing is that emails we're receiving now, have obscured From email-addresses:

From: customername <@ournewhost.com "Our Company" <[email protected]>>

This is taken directly from the Email source. To clarify:

- customername represents the name of one of our customers
- @ournewhost.com is our new web-host, fully managed by ourselves
- "Our Company" <[email protected]> is what we have specified in the configuration.

If we used the name sans-quotes, the email we receive would show as coming from [email protected]. If we use the quotes, we see "Our Company" as the Sender name, and we see [email protected] as the sender email. It however appears to screw up something else.

Currently our Email configuration is as follows:

E-Mail Transport Method: PHP
E-Mail Linefeeds: LF
Use MIME HTML When Sending Emails: true
Send E-Mails: true
Email Archiving Active?: false
E-Mail Friendly-Errors: true
Email Address (Displayed to Contact you): [email protected]
Email Address (sent FROM): "Our Company" <[email protected]>
Emails must send from known domain?: Yes
Email Admin Format?: TEXT
Send Copy of Order Confirmation Emails To: [email protected]

Then for the SMTP account details, we left everything default.

Are we doing something wrong? Is there a problem in our Zen Cart configuration, or would it likely be something with the PHP mail function? If so, what should we do to fix this? As mentioned, we manage the server ourselves, so we cant go to our ISP and tell them to fix it :) We ARE the isp :)

Appreciate your thoughts and suggestions!

[kobra]

If so, what should we do to fix this? As mentioned, we manage the server ourselves,

Secure up your email MTA - - exactly how is not a ZenCart issue and more a server admin issue and there are many forums that are directed at that subject

[DrByte]

Email Address (sent FROM): "Our Company" <[email protected]>

That should ONLY be the email address, not a name.
ie: just use [email protected]
The store name will be automatically added for you as needed.

[mask2011]

DrByte: That seems to have done the trick! :) Thanks lots, and kobra too! We'll be tightening up security in the days to come, so hopefully things will be better soon!

I did notice btw, that the emails now appear to come in from the right name (Sender Name is the Customer's name) but the email address shows as [email protected].. The Reply-To mail shows properly as the person's email-address, but if I click on Reply, it will try to send the mail to [email protected]. I've tried Reply All and Reply, both give the exact same result.

Is there a way to make sure that the Reply-To address is actually used? I use Google Apps Mail, but it seems to prefer the From email-address when I reply to mails coming from Zen Cart..

Also, due to the fact that every customer who now contacts me through the Contact Us form is now represented by [email protected], my Address Book shows all my customers as [email protected] :) I suddenly have a lot more people in my company ;)

Appreciate any additional thoughts you may have!

[DrByte]

So, you're saying that Google Apps mail is incorrectly ignoring a properly-configured Reply-To mail header?
Might be something to complain to Google about.

Zen Cart sends "from" the store's email address because many servers will reject mail that is spoofed to pretend that it's coming from someplace else. That's why "Reply-To" headers exist.