2002 Tech Tip: Email Bombing and Spamming
• SEI Report
Publisher
Software Engineering Institute
Topic or Tag
Abstract
Email bombing is characterized by abusers repeatedly sending an email message to a particular address at a specific victim site. In many instances, the messages will be large and constructed from meaningless data in an effort to consume additional system and network resources. Multiple accounts at the target site may be abused, increasing the denial of service impact.
Email spamming is a variant of bombing; it refers to sending email to hundreds or thousands of users (or to lists that expand to that many users). Email spamming can be made worse if recipients reply to the email, causing all the original addressees to receive the reply. It may also occur innocently, as a result of sending a message to mailing lists and not realizing that the list explodes to thousands of users, or as a result of a responder message (such as vacation(1)) that is set up incorrectly.
Email bombing/spamming may be combined with email spoofing (which alters the identity of the account sending the email), making it more difficult to determine who actually sent the email. For more details on email spoofing, see: 2002 Tech Tip: Spoofed/Forged Email
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Cite This SEI Report
Software Engineering Institute (2002, January 1). 2002 Tech Tip: Email Bombing and Spamming. Retrieved August 10, 2026, from https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/2002-tech-tip-email-bombing-and-spamming/.
@techreport{Citekey_2002,
author={Software Engineering Institute},
title={2002 Tech Tip: Email Bombing and Spamming},
month={Jan},
year={2002},
institution={Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University},
url={https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/2002-tech-tip-email-bombing-and-spamming/},
note={Accessed: 2026-Aug-10}
}
Software Engineering Institute. "2002 Tech Tip: Email Bombing and Spamming." Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Software Engineering Institute, January 1, 2002. https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/2002-tech-tip-email-bombing-and-spamming/.
Software Engineering Institute, "2002 Tech Tip: Email Bombing and Spamming," Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Software Engineering Institute, 1-Jan-2002 [Online]. Available: https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/2002-tech-tip-email-bombing-and-spamming/. [Accessed: 10-Aug-2026].
Software Engineering Institute. "2002 Tech Tip: Email Bombing and Spamming." Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute, 1 Jan. 2002. https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/2002-tech-tip-email-bombing-and-spamming/. Accessed 10 Aug. 2026.
Software Engineering Institute. 2002 Tech Tip: Email Bombing and Spamming. Software Engineering Institute. 2002. https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/2002-tech-tip-email-bombing-and-spamming/