Possible to tamper with email on the server?

[Paul C]

Hi all.

My partner is worried somebody may have stored malware or a keylogger on her system when she was at work. There are a number of reasons, but the main one is that recently she received an email with important work info that she needed. She checked this email on her phone and read the info, but when she logged into her live mail on her laptop to re-check the info, the email was different. All it said was Happy New Year.

What I'm wondering, is that even possible? How do you change an email that is still on the server? It's not like replying to an email when you can delete what you want included. This is the actual email received in her inbox. Can that be changed by someone remotely? And if so, what should she do? She's changed her mail passwords but I suppose if there is a keylogger, it will just record her new password?

 

[ozziej]

Its very easy to modify an email on a server.
On a linux box if its using something like postfix and sendmail, its easy to just go an do an edit as root on the user's mailbox.
They are plaintext files.

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Did she deleted it by mistake?

 

[Paul C]

No it was the same mail. It was marked as read, the subject line and everything was the same. It was like the mail itself had been changed so she wouldn't see the contents.

 

[Paul C]

Is there any way to request logs? Possibly from Telkom Internet? Would they be able to tell who is accessing her system/mail?

 

[Grep]

Piece of piss to change mail