Email Issue

[Arab Nights (imported)]

I have started to have emails go out that I did not send. They go to groups of three on my contact list. They are always titled [no subject]. I found out when the first email went out to an email address is now defunct and I got the delivery failure notification. Another email went out last night. It was sent at 12:43 AM, when I was asleep and my computer was turned off - unless 12:43 AM was another time zone and not the time where I am (PST). The email always has only a link that you can click on. I have never clicked on it. Wifey was one of the first three and said it was for viagra.

What is happening?

What can I do about it? Change my email password?

[speedvogel (imported)]

A couple of easy things come to mind.

First, clear the cache and history on your computer. This often will delete some of the more basic malware.

Second, run a complete scan with a good spyware program such as Spybot Search and Destroy. This is free and does a good, if slow, scan for most folks. I also advocate the free version of AVG anti-virus. Free is a good price most of the time and these programs work well. I have used them forever.

Speed

[Patrickchemcast (imported)]

from time to time, I receive e-mails written in very poor english, quoting "cialis, cailys, viagra, vaigar....." my best advice is DON'T ANSWER

It is important not to answer, otherwise the sender will know that the address is good, DON'T OPEN the mail, you don't know what's hidden.

2 of my correspondents received strange mails, making me think that my agenda has been copied, I sent a message to Yahoo, immediately changed the password. CHANGE YOUR PASSWORDS

These hackers had the nerve to send me another mail requesting my new password !!! under the pretext that yahoo was about to close accounts !!!

A couple of years ago I received a mail from Paypal stating that they changed address and requesting my credit card data !!! The address change was true, but Paypal never sends this kind of mail, once again, I changed my password and sent a copy of the mail to the real Paypal.

Be careful, never hesitate to change passwords.

Some hackers create very good imitations of true sites (Banks, Credit offices, etc, similarly, when using an ATM or paying in a supermarket or a shop, ALWAYS HIDE YOUR HAND while typing your code...

[Sweetpickle (imported)]

You didn't say what email you use but it is possible that the server has been hacked.

It might be good to open accounts on several servers then be careful about

which you use for different types of communication.

[transward (imported)]

Tech writer had article about this problem recently.

http://ask-leo.com/someones_sending_ema ... ts_from_me _to_my_contacts_what_can_i_do.html

someones_sending_email_that_looks_like_its_from_me _to_my_contacts_what_can_i_do.html

The big clue here is that email is being sent from you to contacts in your address book.

In the "old days", that typically meant that your computer had acquired a virus, and that virus was in turn accessing your PC's email program and systematically sending email to everyone in your contact list or address book.

While that's still a possibility - and you should absolutely make sure that your anti-malware tools are running and up to date - it's not nearly as common as it once was. Most email programs now carefully protect against unauthorized address book access.

What more likely occurred is that your email account has been compromised - meaning that you probably have an on-line email account, free or otherwise, that someone has gained access too. By virtue of doing so they now have access not only to your email, but to your address book as well. It's all too common these days to hear of folks whose accounts have been compromised only to have all their friends get inundated with spam, threats, malicious emails or messages that try to impersonate you and scam your contacts out of money.

How this happened is difficult to say. It could be anything from a weak password that's easy to guess, to your account credentials being sniffed in an open WiFi hotspot, to your simply having shared the account information with someone you should not have.

For all we know, it could also be a roommate walking up to your computer when you're not using it and sending messages right then and there.

(And for the record, last year there was a partial account compromise at one of the larger free email services - account credentials were stolen without the users having done anything wrong. Same result.)

I've talked before about email that appears to come from you, but in fact does not. This is different. Specifically:

Spam email is sent to random people you don't know, "spoofing" the From: address to make it look like it comes from you when it does not. There is almost nothing that can be done about this.

Email from stolen accounts is sent to people in your address book, and is not spoofed at all - it really is coming from your account. It's just not you sending it.

Transward

[Arab Nights (imported)]

If the date of the first email has anything to do with it, this started when I was on a camp wireless router hooked directly to Direcway. If it is something that had a delay built in to hide things a bit, it could be many hotels with unsecured wireless systems.

[Arab Nights (imported)]

What (tentatively) solved the issue was changing my password. Of course, to do that with Yahoo your secondary email address comes into play. You have to re-confirm that. I have had the email account for probably 7 or 8 years. When it was originally set up, we used my wife's email as the secondary email address. She got a bunch of emails from it coming up during the re-password process.