07-25-2011, 09:03 PM | #1 | ||
Coordinator
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Pacific
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Email Help Please
My email account has been hacked, I guess you could say. My account is sending out spam to my contacts. I deleted all my contacts. Today I put my wifes email into my contacts and she gets a spam email from my account.
Do I need to get a new email account? Or is there something else I can do to end this mass spam issue? Thanks. |
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07-25-2011, 09:17 PM | #2 | |
Hall Of Famer
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Behind Enemy Lines in Athens, GA
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Here's the Google/GMail take on the subject. Most of it seems applicable to pretty much any email service I think. I bolded the two things I'd do first, although I'm just a rank amateur that hasn't even stayed at a Holiday Inn Express recently. My unsophisticated analysis would be that, because of the contacts seemingly being accessed, this is more than just spoofing but rather someone is (either literally or effectively) accessing your email account.
Quote:
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"I lit another cigarette. Unless I specifically inform you to the contrary, I am always lighting another cigarette." - from a novel by Martin Amis |
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07-25-2011, 09:29 PM | #3 |
College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Edmonton, AB
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Ideally, I'd change your password, ASAP, on a known "clean" computer as yours could very well have a keylogger installed and therefore making the password change useless.
Once that's done, virus scan the crap out of your computer. |
07-25-2011, 09:31 PM | #4 | |
Head Coach
Join Date: Jul 2001
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Quote:
+1, someone like gstelmack or Alan T will probalby have better or more thorough advice, but it sounds more like your PC has a virus and that virus is trying to spread it or some other crap via your e-mail account if it can figure out how to use it. Last edited by Radii : 07-25-2011 at 09:31 PM. |
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07-26-2011, 08:37 AM | #5 |
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Cary, NC
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That's not an e-mail account hack, that's a typical Outlook virus on the PC. However, hard to tell with the lack of info on e-mail service / reader in the original post.
And listen to Alan T over me on virus advice, I'm just a placeholder with some (hopefully) reasonable ideas to tide you over, he knows more about it than I do.
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-- Greg -- Author of various FOF utilities |
07-26-2011, 08:54 AM | #6 |
Hall Of Famer
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Mass.
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If your email has been hacked as it sounds pretty likely that it has based on what you posted, you want to immediately do the following:
1a) Scan your computer for viruses/malware 1b) Change the password on your email. Even if you change your password for your email from a "dirty system", you can simply re-change it again in a little bit. Generally changing the password asap though will stop the current spam and possibly give you a little reprieve while trying to figure out what allowed them to access your email in the first place. Now to figure out how they got into your email, sometimes it is impossible to know for sure, but most common ways are: - Keylogger/virus on your system thanks to something you either downloaded that was infected, or from simply web browsing to infected sites (could be legitimate sites that have infections). Usually keeping your computer updated on new security patches and running some form of script blocker (such as firefox/noscript) will help best against these type of things. It is ideal to run one of the better anti-virus detections with updated signatures too, even though it is not uncommon for new viruses to become pretty wide-spread before Antivirus is able to handle them. (Thus why it is important to keep your system patched and to block scripts from websites when you don't need them to run). - Poor password. Many email systems won't let you use dictionary based words any more, but it is still a very common method of breaking a password by simply running dictionary based attacks on an account. If your password is simply some word (or even a word with a fancy letter change such as a Zero instead of an O or a One instead of a l ) then it is not very secure. - Shared password: Do you use the same password for your email that you do on forums or other online login systems? It is often very easy to hack insecure forums on the internet, and the number of people that use the same password for everything is mind boggling. If you use the same password for your forum logins that you do for email, stop it. All someone has to do is break into a forum DB and then they can find your email address, use the same password and they suddenly have access to a whole bunch of other things. |
07-26-2011, 08:56 AM | #7 |
Hall Of Famer
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Mass.
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I had thought the original poster had indicated google email. But now see that was a follow up post.
If it is a google account, I am assuming the account was hacked. If it is some other type of account and the contacts you talk about are local such as in outlook, then that is slightly different. However the advice to scan your system and change your password is sound advice regardless of which scenario it is. Last edited by Alan T : 07-26-2011 at 08:57 AM. |
07-26-2011, 09:25 AM | #8 |
Coordinator
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Pacific
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It is a yahoo account. I scanned my computer and found a virus. I changed my password, also. The emails go out at about the same time every night. I only have my wifes account right now in my contacts. I will see if she gets another email tonight.
Again, thanks for all the help. I really appreciate it. |
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