Strange “spam” emails to admin from WP Mail SMTP? “42 -()”

  • Resolved KingDingbat

    (@kingdingbat)


    2 months ago

    I’ve used WP Mail SMTP for a couple years and have always gotten this weird spam email from it? I’m not sure if it’s legitimate spam or some sort of broken alert from the plugin. I have a dozen websites most of them using this plugin and it occasionally happens from all of them, but particularly from one.

    It’s an email from “mailer@<myWordPressDomain>.com” – which is the custom email I have setup for the WP Mail SMTP plugin. No other part of WordPress uses it.
    It is always sent to my site’s admin email like “webmaster@<myWordpressDomain>.com” (that’s not it, but an example.)

    and it always has the same content. Just:
    “42
    -()”

    and nothing else. I usually get bursts of these emails by 5 or 6 at a time, once a month or so.

    I use WP Mail SMTP through Brevo (formerly SendInBlue) API and I see the emails in my Brevo logs, but I don’t know why they’re being sent? I suspect it is originating from WordPress since it’s using the email addresses setup in WordPress, but I don’t know if the plugin is malfunctioning, or if someone is abusing the plugin through my site?

    My main question is why is this happening – is this some sort of automated alert that WP Mail SMTP is sending or is it some sort of bot using the plugin nefariously? I don’t see any settings that relate or that could prevent it. It’s a puzzle to me.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

  • Hi @kingdingbat,

    Thanks for contacting us ??

    Please know that these spam emails aren’t caused by WP Mail SMTP. I’ll explain below:

    When WP Mail SMTP is set up, it improves email delivery. The problem that was occurring before was that not all of your emails were able to get through. This includes spam that spambots were trying to send. You didn’t see those emails because, like legitimate emails, they couldn’t get through. When our plugin fixes the delivery problem, it fixes it for all emails. This means legit emails and spam will be able to make it through, as our plugin doesn’t determine what email is legit and what isn’t. It passes all of it over to the mailer service.

    What you’ll want to do is stop spam at the source, so you’ll have to investigate where the emails are triggered from—most likely a form on your sites. Stopping spam before it can be submitted will stop WordPress and WP Mail SMTP from processing it. This not only stops spam from landing in your email, it also helps prevent your hosting account from running unnecessary processes, which can affect your resource usage.

    You can also install the WP Mail Logging plugin, which can help you check your email logs and possibly identify the source of these emails.

    I hope this helps. Thanks! ??

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.