Email address used for Avast: compromised!

[IDF]

I use a separate email address for every purpose. I own my own domain and can make up whatever user names I want.

Well, today I got a phishing email addressed to the email address I have never used for anything but Avast support. The email address begins with the user name "avast" so you can see what I mean.

I would like to congratulate Avast for having its systems compromised. Well done, )*&#(*U!

Support doesn't respond in any event, even to subscribers. I am fuming about that, but it's a separate matter.

[Pondus]

How spammers get your emailaddress  >>  https://www.lifewire.com/how-spammers-get-email-addresses-1173992

Machine guessing Email Addresses  >>  http://www.bustspammers.com/guess-email-address.html


http://www.private.org.il/harvest.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address_harvesting

[Eddy]

Just because you received a phishing mail there, doesn't mean that anything from avast was compromised.

Last time (and to my knowledge the only time) it happened was 3 years ago and avast has clearly told the users about it.
https://blog.avast.com/2014/05/26/avast-forum-offline-due-to-attack/

https://hacked-emails.com/

[Pondus]

  Support doesn't respond in any event, even to subscribers. I am fuming about that, but it's a separate matter.   

Did you use the ticket system?
If so, when did you submit the ticket?

[IDF]

  Support doesn't respond in any event, even to subscribers. I am fuming about that, but it's a separate matter.   

Did you use the ticket system?
If so, when did you submit the ticket?

Yes, I did. Submitted twice, on 5/1 and 5/3.

They responded to each with 2 emails:

1) Help is on its way

2) Hi! You have a new message from the team.( Ticket ID: [#nnnnn] )
We're sorry, but we can't seem to find a record of your license in our system.

If you use Avast Free Antivirus, please visit the FAQ section of our website or the Avast community forum.

If you use one of our premium products and believe you've received this message in error, please reply directly to this email advising us of your order ID or the email address you used to make the purchase. If you do not remember your order ID or which email address you used, please provide your full name and the postal address you entered when purchasing Avast.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
The Avast Support Team


I replied to both with the email address used in the original order (I found it in Settings > Subscription) along with my customer number. (And that's when the spamming at that email address started.)

Avast then closed the first ticket, and sent an identical reply to the second ticket (asking me, again, for email address and order number).

I found the order number in an old email from Avast from Feb 2016, and have responded again. It is not clear that humans are sending out any of these responses from them, though.

We'll see if the order number helps. It may not - it's part of my original order from more than a year ago, and I don't know if my renewal got a new order number that I can't find. I thought the email address and customer number would have been adequate, though.

[Eddy]

Simply replying to a message from avast does not start spamming.

[IDF]

Eddy, I would agree. It would have to be a strange coincidence. I both replied via email, and via Avast's support web page. There are a few places where there could be some leaks or bad actors, like at my ISP (Comcast) and mail provider (GoDaddy).