For the second time in what seems like the last 6 months, my email address have been "hijacked" or hacked and emails are sent using my address to everyone (I think it is everyone) in my address book. I am frustrated and AOL is not much help.
I have to say that I am sort of AOL dependent and do not want to change email address... but this is getting ridiculous. Any suggestions on what to do? Thank you for any input.
Hi Eden I'm having the same problem. In fact, the last time this happened was around April Fools and then it stopped, and here it is May 1/2 and the same thing again. I'm thinking this will happen again June 1/2 (just a theory). Here is what my Help Desk at my ISP said: ============================================== I thought they were legitimate e-mails you were trying to send out. I am 99% sure your problem has to do with one of two things:
1. Your e-mail address was spoofed and is now being used to send out spam messages 2. There is a virus or some phishing software that has made it unto your machine that is now maliciously sending messages out (more likely than the above).
The initial remedy for this is an update of your antivirus software, followed by a complete scan of all your hard drives (including any external detachable drives you may have). It's important to first update, then scan otherwise the virus (assuming it is a virus) will impede the anti-virus' efforts to remove it. =============================================== ** Moderator -- should this be moved to the Technology Forum?
[shortened == -> causing page to be too wide]
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Colleen,
Fortunately my ISP has a spam filter service for which I pay an extra $10 per year and quite often I will receive a message from them to say which emails they have stopped. I can release them if I want. I have even seen emails to myself from myself in the filter.
My ISP told me that hijacking and spam occurs a lot from forwarded messages whereby the sender doesn't delete the previous recipients names.
Elly
Posts: 1022 | Location: Western Australia | Registered: 27 March 2005
I was one of moderators that was recently hacked on my web email. I don't have any suggestions other than the ones above. I have yahoo and I've been getting a lot of 'Canadian Pharmacy' spam. I'm guessing that I opened one and that let them know I had a legitimate email address. They hacked in and then sent email from my account. Fortunately, they only sent one set of emails. But like you Eden - I'm waiting to see what happens next.
I'd be very careful opening any email with a strange titles or a one that has RE: and a strange title. Even from people you know.
Something strange is going on. Yesterday I received multiple e-mails from one of our ST addresses and today I received the same e-mails from another person who is on ST. Both of these were from the same source--advertising the same types of technology products--the mispelling was the same in both. I use g-mail--not AOL. It is quite strange that this is suddenly happening within the ST community.
I, too, received mail from a Chris Cxxxxx trying to sell me products and figured something was amiss. I knew Chris the moderator has a gmail address but just figured she'd been hacked.
Posts: 756 | Location: S of the 49th parallel N latitude | Registered: 02 December 2002
This now makes some sense of an email I recently received in my yahoo account. I posted a comment on Susan & Arnie's blog recently. They sent me an email responding to my comment. A few days or a week later I had an email from the same email address in my spam folder. It had a strange subject. I hesitated to open it but then did and if I remember correctly it was a Canadian pharmacy spam email. It was definitely spam.
After reading this, I have sent Susan & Arnie an email to let them know that their email may have been hijacked although the spam could have come straight from my posting my email address when leaving comments?? This is the first time this has ever happened to me. I wonder if others are getting spam emails from my email account also?
I sent an e-mail to a ST member on May 1 and yesterday got one of those e-mails you all are talking about sent from her account. I do believe it is the e-mail address she has listed here and it is, in fact, an AOL account. It was for tech products and she e-mailed to confirm she'd been hacked and that the same spam e-mail was sent out to all of her contacts.
If it's people just pretending to be you no point worrying. If somebody wrote your home address on the return portion of a letter it wouldn't mean you did and having emails sent with your email address doesn't mean anything either.
If you're worried post the full headers of one of the emails. Leave out your email and the receivers address but leave all the routing info.
Plenty of ways to get your email address. Between your friends getting viruses. To simple brute strength stuff.
Gmail and yahoo tend to have fair/good spam filters. If anything I find Gmail too severe.
Now I am wondering if the email addresses being hacked are from this website. Mine was on selling some technology with prices in British pounds. So weird.
Add me to the list. Yesterday the technology email went out using my email address. Tom did two different scans on my computer and no viruses were detected. He then started checking my gmail account and it appeared that it was somehow being generated from there. He posted the following on the gmail user board:
Today, a Spam email was sent that looks like it was from one of my accounts. I think that is fake because there is nothing in Sent mail and the message header looks very different from one sent from GMail. The scary thing is that the list of To addressees is exactly the list of addresses in the Chat List shown on the GMail home page for that account! We have never used chat in that account so those are addresses that GMail is suggesting for some reason and several are even not people (order notification addresses etc.). We knew about this because our addresses were in a list and we got some bounces. I have changed the password on this account but there is no other evidence the account has been compromised. We use it through POP so it even took us a while to figure out the password! Does anyone have a suggestion of how this could happen and has anyone seen the same thing? I should have mentioned that the email was for the elecor8 web site which is evidently infamous for only accepting wire transfers to pay for extremely low-priced products and then - surprise - not shipping them. Thanks and any ideas. Tom
So far he has not received any replies but if he does receive anything that sheds some light on this, I'll let everyone know.
This generally means that someone has received a virus. Certain viruses can get into your e-mail folders and send emails to all of those who you have in the various folders. One of my collesgues recently 'sent' a penile implant advertisment to all of our local presidents, school board officials, ministry officials, etc. It appeared as if the e-mail was sent from her. OUCH
It is always a good thing to update your virus protection regularly to protect from these. I rarely open attachments as well unless I truly know who they are coming from and expect them.
Jerry
The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see. ~G.K. Chesterton
Dear Chris, I received your lovely offer by e-mail. Thank you for thinking of me, however at this time I am unable take advantage of the generous promotional discount. Sincerely, Deborah
Deborah Horn In a previous life I was an Umbrian sunflower farmer. I want to do a past life regression and stay there. ----------------------------------- www.petsburg.com My blog: Old Shoes - New Trip
Posts: 4629 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: 04 September 2001
I don't think it is a virus because the emails that were sent by me came from my web only Yahoo email account. And they were actually in my sent folder. The emails were sent to everyone on my contact list. Typically a virus works on a PC based email program such as Outlook. I thought web based email was somewhat immune to harvesting contact lists but it doesn't look like it.
I don't think it has anything to do with Slow Travel other than several of us have each other in their web email contact lists.
Tom received a reply to his posted question. It was very technical, but I'll try to give you the non-technical version .
Evidently, there has been a program developed that "captured" some of our contact email addresses if we went to their website. It has affected people with accounts through gmail, hotmail and several others. It then uses that information to send out the spam emails making them look as if you sent them. This explains why some of us sent them to ourselves as well as others because while capturing our contact email list it also captured the originators address. This also explains why none of us is showing that we have a virus - the emails are not actually coming from our computer, but from somewhere else that is using the captured list.
After this explanation and because many of us here on ST have had this happen, Tom suspects that perhaps someone (probably knowingly) made a post on ST which provided a link to a website that was using this "capture" program. Unfortunately, this program has been around since January, so there is probably no way of even beginning to figure out if there has been a bogus website link planted in a ST posting.
At least this possibly answers our question regarding what is happening.
Originally posted by Marta: I don't think it is a virus because the emails that were sent by me came from my web only Yahoo email account. And they were actually in my sent folder.
That would worry me.
How did they get sent? It's possible your computer sent them. I use gmail that way. I almost never log into the gmail but send/receive from my computer. It's possible to do the same thing with yahoo.
I've suggested posting the full header info. I'll suggest it again.
I don't have any suggestions other than the ones above. I have yahoo and I've been getting a lot of 'Canadian Pharmacy' spam. I'm guessing that I opened one and that let them know I had a legitimate email address. They hacked in and then sent email from my account. Fortunately, they only sent one set of emails. But like you Eden - I'm waiting to see what happens next. 
.