Forum Discussion

Nebulus's avatar
Nebulus
New Contributor
6 years ago

Unable to forward phishing emails

Sometimes when I try to forward a phishing scam email to the organization being spoofed, Cox rejects the forwarded message. The Cox server returns an error message like:

server message: ... This message was undeliverable. This message has been found to be a +potential spam message, and has therefore been blocked. Please visit ww2.cox.com/coxagainstspam for more information.

This does not occur when I forward to phishingreport@cox.net or abuse@cox.net, but it does occur with other phishing-report addresses, such as:

spoof@americanexpress.com (American Express)
phishalert@navyfederal.org (Navy Federal Credit Union)
reportphish@wellsfargo.com (Wells Fargo)

My mail setup: Linux system, MUA is Mutt v1.10, MTA is msmtp v1.8 (a simplified Sendmail variant). The outgoing mail server is smtp.cox.net, I use TLS and port 587. I am usually able to send and receive other emails without getting these errors.

This problem has been reported several times in the forum, e.g.:

forums.cox.com/.../cox-blocked-efforts-to-report-phishing-e-mail
forums.cox.com/.../forwarding-phishing-e-mails
forums.cox.com/.../phishing-emails
forums.cox.com/.../72618
forums.cox.com/.../spam-phishing
forums.cox.com/.../forward-phishing-email-to-support

but, thus far no solution I could find.

Is there a way to bypass the spam filter when forwarding a phishing email to a phishing-report address other than Cox's?

2 Replies

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  • CarolLM's avatar
    CarolLM
    Former Moderator
    Hi there, no there's no other way to bypass the spam filter because we don't suggest forwarding the email to the organization being spoofed. That may possibly be interpreted as Cox initiating the email and we don't want that to happen. Note: All suspect phishing emails must be forwarded to Cox as an attachment. Do not just forward the message, to the (2) sites you've listed. Our back office Team will handle it from there. Let us know if you have any further questions or concerns we're here to help!-Thanks, Carol