OT: Hijacked email accounts

[Guest guest]

Recently many email accounts have been hijacked. We have been receiving

a spam-type messages from email addresses we recognize. The hijacker has

somehow obtained our friends' (or group members') email addresses and

address books and is sending emails promoting something.

If you receive this kind of email, discard it without clicking any link

(URL) in the email. If there is an attachment, don't open it.

List owners might as well remove these people from their lists, or at

least put them on moderated status until they fix the problem. Or they

can reapply with a new email address.

A contributor to Answers provided this solution:

It's possible that you may have been infected with spyware in the

form of a keylogger if your account is sending out spam. You should

run an antivirus and antispyware scan first. If you haven't an

antispyware application, you can try SuperAntiSpyware and

MalwareBytesAntiMalware. Both offer a free version for home use.

MalwareBytes

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

SuperAntispyware

http://superantispyware.com/

If everything comes up clean after installing, checking for updates,

and running scans, change your password associated with your Windows

Live ID.

To avoid incoming spam from overrunning your account, don't open

unsolicted email from unknown sources. Often what happens is that

when you open up spam, it sends back a trigger to the originating

source indicating that a valid email address has been found thus

subjecting you to even more spam down the road. Even using the

preview pane in email products sends web beacons back to spammers if

you have HTML enabled. See some helpful hints at the links below.

http://www.infoworld.com/t/business/preview-spam-and-youll-get-more-686

http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-007.html

For more information about this problem and how to avoid it, read the

article at

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/04/spam_sent_through_hijacked_\

web.html

Don't let this happen to you!

Phyllis Mervine

CALDA

Empowering Patients Through Advocacy, Education & Research

www.lymedisease.org

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