Is veeam selling my details to spammers?

[1971merlin]

Hi all,

I have received several targeted spams this past week or so, from various marketing companies. When I check the details, the spammers have my info on file exactly as per my VEEAM registration. I know VEEAM must be selling my info as there is a specific typo and a nonstandard phone number that we only ever had with VEEAM (not advertised on our public website etc.) which these spammers have - meaning VEEAM can be the only source of this info.

I am also unable to find any privacy policy from VEEAM.

I am wondering if a VEEAM rep can comment on why our private details are being sold to third parties, and what VEEAM's privacy policy is, exactly.

I am extremely unhappy about this situation and demand that VEEAM cease selling my private details to spammers. I don't expect VEEAM to be selling or providing the details of their paying clients to marketing firms.

The spammers include Cirrussoft.com, SharePointShepherd.com, streamsend.com and others.

[Gostev]

I am wondering if a VEEAM rep can comment on why our private details are being sold to third parties

I can assure you Veeam is not selling your private details to third parties.

Even putting things like our privacy policy and legal risks aside, it simply does not make any sense for a 600M revenue company to sell personal details of their clients for what, a few cents a record? More importantly, this way our competitors would easily be able to obtain our customers list - something we just cannot afford to happen.

That said, I have forwarded your query into the responsible department to see if they have any idea what could have happened, since they have all activities around every customer record tracked.

Also, keep in mind that because we sell through the channel, becoming a paying customer requires a transaction that involves at least two other parties (distributor and reseller) who get to know your personal details.

what VEEAM's privacy policy is, exactly

You can find the link at the bottom of each page of our web-site > https://www.veeam.com/privacy_policy.html

[kubimike]

any chance they just read the cookies off your machine?

[1971merlin]

any chance they just read the cookies off your machine?

These are spammers sending me an unsolicited email. They can hardly be reading my cookies in order to do that.

I can see the typo's details (confirming the data originated with VEEAM) when clicking the unsubscribe link and seeing the data the spammer has on their subscription preferences / "my account" form. I'm doing this from a personal mobile phone with no company data on it, that has never been used to access VEEAM website or could possibly have anything company related on it (I'm trying the unsubscribe URL in by hand). The browser on the phone is also in incognito mode.

i.e. the data is coming from the spammer, not from me.

[1971merlin]

Also, keep in mind that because we sell through the channel, becoming a paying customer requires a transaction that involves at least two other parties (distributor and reseller) who get to know your personal details.

You can find the link at the bottom of each page of our web-site > https://www.veeam.com/privacy_policy.html

The privacy policy seems to relate only to use the the veeam website, not the privacy of VEEAM customers.

Also, we purchased VEEAM directly off the VEEAM website, not via a reseller/channel [we purchased veeam version 7, a few years ago]. We have never renewed maintenance (happy to just buy once, and own the older version forever, and accept that risk & forego support). Therefore, this data has been keyed in exactly once by us into the veeam online purchase website, and never routed through any third party.

[Gostev]

The privacy policy seems to relate only to use the the veeam website, not the privacy of VEEAM customers.

You did not read it carefully. It is most definitely not just for the website - for example, look under the Use of Personal Information section for things well beyond the website.

Therefore, this data has been keyed in exactly once by us into the veeam online purchase website, and never routed through any third party.

That is not a correct statement, and this is explained in the privacy policy under the Online Purchases section. As you can see, even if you buy our product online, your information is routed through the third party.

[Gostev]

Hi Craig, can you please send all emails as attachments? I will PM you the address to send them to. Perhaps working back through senders may be the easiest way to identify where they got your personal details from, especially if some of them will appear to be known companies who would be willing to work with us on the investigation. Thanks!

[frankj]

i fyou want to make sure register an alias like veeamspam231498i209348@yourdomain.com

and wait for it..

it could be a number of reasons... someone on same hosting as you sniffing unencrypted mail transport.
someone else got hacked, like a reseller/distributor, or even an employee of these distributors....

[winnt]

I've received malware to my e-mail I registered with Veeam as well.
It was the malware from shipping@usps-service.com with the subject of Shipping information for parcel 012345678
on 2/6/2017 and then again on 2/21/2017. The one on 2/21/2017 was accompanied by e-mails from these websites I've registered with:
veeam
vmug
unitrends
kidslinked
chipotle
and a few others. I know they came from my registrations from these because I create a new e-mail address for every site I register with. It is handy to know when your information has been hacked since you rarely ever find out from the companies themselves. Even my bank didn't tell me!

[bdaeumling]

Im pretty sure that the spamer-technologies are more deeper then we think about.
To say that Veeam was hacked is the easiest way to imagine how they get your data. But there are million other ways.

F.e. when you use Google / YouTube etc. : I wrote a comment under a YouTube video "hey the guy in the video looks like Logan (Wolverine)" and just 5 seconds later my complete browser was full with banners for the new Logan-Movie.
What i want to say is that Veeam really cares about your data and they surley didn`t sell this to others for a few cents/record as gostev already mentioned.
If they want your data - however - they get it.

Br Bene

[winnt]

I never use those e-mail addresses for anything other than registration or getting signed up for their newsletters. I don't think Veeam or the other domains sold my info since the messages were malware. I think they or the third-parties they used were hacked. If I care enough and have time, I might try to find something in common with them all. Perhaps they use the same third-party mail providers. I could probably check the message headers from their newsletters and their MX and SPF records to see who they permit to send their e-mail.

[homerjnick]

Be interesting to see a detailed Malware report ran and posted on here on the OP's machine.

[dominix]

I have been using two different email address dedicated to veeam recently, and used ONLY on this forum, and got these two email address spammed
sender are clearly fraudulent, and there is attempt to instillate malware .
form my point of view VEEAM is clearly victim of some hacking of his database.

I can provide contain of the spam or malicious email for diagnostic if you want.
regards.

[1971merlin]

Be interesting to see a detailed Malware report ran and posted on here on the OP's machine.

Care to let me know what malware report tool oyu would like run?

I work for a multinational IT support company. We have an extremely strict security policy, and our machines are extremely well locked down. Our clients include legal firms, banks and government. I'm damn sure all our machines are clean. I reject the implication that the issue is caused from our end. But, i'm happy to run any well known malware checking tool and post the report, just to prove that we are not the ones being hacked here.

[Gostev]

I have been using two different email address dedicated to veeam recently, and used ONLY on this forum, and got these two email address spammed
sender are clearly fraudulent, and there is attempt to instillate malware .
form my point of view VEEAM is clearly victim of some hacking of his database.

This forum is actually completely standalone and is currently NOT integrated with any single Veeam system.

To my knowledge, the forum has never been hacked to date - and besides, it seems too much work just to get emails anyway - when you can simply sniff SMTP traffic and capturing all emails this way? The server running this forum runs in Amazon along with a whole bunch of other servers in the same network infrastructure...

[skrause]

I have been getting a lot of "Register today for Sharepoint training" emails that when I click the unsubscribe link shows information that matches what I had on my registration at VeeamON 2014.

My assumption was that one of the Expo vendors that scanned my badge for whatever piece of swag I decided I had to have at that moment (free booze makes things like can coozies seem so much cooler than normal) had contracted with someone who used that info for all of their email marketing customers.

[mkaec]

I started getting similar SharePoint spam in early January, but I've never been to VeeamON. I don't track work email like 1971merlin does. (I do it with my personal email, though.) So, I can't say what the source of these was. I blocked them in our spam filter. If they sent more, I wouldn't know.

[dominix]

This forum is actually completely standalone and is currently NOT integrated with any single Veeam system.

To my knowledge, the forum has never been hacked to date - and besides, it seems too much work just to get emails anyway - when you can simply sniff SMTP traffic and capturing all emails this way? The server running this forum runs in Amazon along with a whole bunch of other servers in the same network infrastructure...

I did NOT suspect this forum ... I have taked about VEEAM has I have used some email adresse only with veeam account.

[1971merlin]

FYI I've never been to VeeamON either. Don't think this is the source [in my case] at least.

Any updates from VEEAM? I've had no response after forwarding examples spams to VEEAM as requested.

[Gostev]

If I hear anything I will be sure to update - the investigation is done by the different department (backend systems) and we're from R&D

[filippot]

We are receiving too spam directed to the email address we have used for Veeam product registration.
Have you found the source of the problem?

Ciao,
Filippo