Badly need help with my mail...Please!

1. 72

   Rishy Richposted 13 years ago

   At first I found it unusual when one of my friend replied to me in my Yahoo mail like "Oh, good job " ...I didnt get that since I havent written to him for long time & neither get what he was talking about. Later when I recievd another mail from another friend of mine where he said stuffs like: "I dont need this...may be you do" ...and only then I got the matter. My email is sending spams to everyone in my contact list. Since my frnds have replied in my mail, I was able to look at the original mail which was sent from my account. There was nothing much, just a link to a website which also had my email address in it. When people click in it, they are directed to a Viagra selling site And its kinda embarrassing since there are different types of people in my contact list.
   
   So my mail is sending spams without my permission. How is that possible & how can I stop it?
   
   P.S: I have tried changing my password, that wont work
   
   Help Pls!

   replyreport
2. 59

   saleheensblogposted 13 years ago

   OMG it's horrible, but I don't know how to stop it.

   replyreport
3. 87

   IzzyMposted 13 years ago

   I would dump the email address. Make a new one, transfer all your contacts over, and send a letter of explanation to everyone.

   replyreport
   1. 0

      china manposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I don't think it is the email address - it is a virus that uses the email

      replyreport
4. 0

   china manposted 13 years ago

   Last time it was a virus that came through Facebook.  I have a frfiend in the UK who is constantly sending me emails about viagra that he does not know about.
   
   At that time the only safe way out was to reload windows - though I have spybot now and that might have got it.

   replyreport
   1. 72

      Rishy Richposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Ok. I thought the virus is in my account. I have to reinstall my windows if I dont find other option.

      replyreport
      1. 90

         Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Have your friends send you headers first.  It may not be your machine at all.

         replyreport
5. 90

   Pcunixposted 13 years ago

   It is not always you.
   
   Any computer, anywhere in the world, can send email that says it is from anyone else.
   
   Often viruses send mail that pretends to be from someone they find in the address book of the machine they infected.
   
   So, for example, if a friends machine was infected, the virus might send spam mail which looks like it came from you, not him.
   
   You can do some detective work to find out. Basically you need to get your friends to send you the actual email headers - if those show that the email originated in another state, it wasn't you.
   
   If it WAS you, you need better A/V software.  Recently, I have found the Microsoft Security Essentials (free download from Microsoft) has caught things others have missed. That's worth a shot before you give up and reinstall everything or take your machine to a professional.

   replyreport
6. 62

   Lisa HWposted 13 years ago

   I had that with a Hotmail account.  A bunch of e.mails got sent out from it.  It was all ads, and it went out old contacts I haven't been in touch with for years.  Stuff started coming back as "can't deliver".  One person wrote back.  (This is kind of funny, but my ex-husband got a Viagra (or something) ad from me!  He said, "I KNEW you wouldn't send that!  ).)  It was adware, though, so nothing malicious.  Malwarebytes got rid of it, but only after a full scan, rather than a quick scan.  Even with that, I just deleted every contact from every e.mail account I have.  I'm going with storing addresses manually from now on.  Live and learn - my daughter said she doesn't keep a contact list for that reason.
   
   A few weeks later my ex-husband's computer at work got a bad one.  His and some other people's Hotmail accounts got messed up.  Someone told him e.mails were going out in people's names that said things like, "I'm stuck in London and need money.  Send it..."    With that one, someone got his passwords to things like bank accounts, so he couldn't log into them, couldn't get into Hotmail to change anything, etc. etc.  He ended up contacting Hotmail (which wasn't easy).  I think he may have ended up calling Hotmail, and then they give him a temporary password until he could get into the account, change things, delete things, etc. etc.  He had trouble finding the number to call.  He may have found it in a search.  I know he said, "Of course, you can't get a human being when you call the number they give you...".
   
   Anyway, it turns out (apparently) that Hotmail has a lot of this kind of stuff because so many people use it.  I guess, based on what he was saying, a lot of e.mail places do have it, but Hotmail is kind of "famous" for it.
   
   With the adware one I got, it did nothing to my passwords; and based on a few things I eventually figured out, that particular one wasn't malicious.  Keeping an absolutely update anti-virus protection is how to keep more of it from happening again.  I've since learned that Malwarebytes (for example) updates - like - several times a day (to give you an idea of how many new viruses show up.
   
   My ex-husband, as he put it, "dumped" Hotmail.  With some premium e.mail services you can pay a little something a year for more security.  There are super-encrypted services, but the problem, but if other e.mail recipients don't have that level of encryption, e.mails from that kind of service can't be read.

   replyreport
7. 59

   paradigmsearchposted 13 years ago

   The contact lists in my email accounts are all empty (this is because I’m such a popular guy).
   
   Actually, I do this to prevent the misery you have just described.
   
   Whenever I want to contact someone, I just go to one of their previous emails and click reply. It takes all of a second to delete the previous irrelevant text and then to proceed normally.
   
   When, for whatever reason, that isn’t a convenient option for me; I copy/paste the addresses from a separate text file that is completely unrelated to the email software.
   
   Edit: the advice you received in the other postings is excellent.

   replyreport