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joeby52 Just Arrived
Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 0
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Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 2:23 am Post subject: How is my email being used to send junk? |
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I have Comodo Security suite, spybot S&D, Malwarebytes, Super Antispyware & spyware terminator and I scan everything regularly and everything is updated, but I am still getting postmaster email send failures for emails sent from me to addresses I know nothing about.
I dont know how the original message is getting onto my email to be forwarded in the first place. The body of the email is all chinese characters.
I have done all I know how. Can somebody please advise what I can do to stop this?
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judicandus SF Mod
Joined: 21 May 2007 Posts: 0 Location: Milan, Italy
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Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 5:55 am Post subject: |
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Hi joeby52,
Try changing your e-mail's password.
I'd also post a Hijackthis log in the Hijackthis and Malware removal forum for analysis.
Spammers might be using your e-mail address to send e-mail through SMTP servers that don't require authentication. In that case, there's not much you can do since you're computer might have not been infected in the first place. For eg.:
1. Your friend's computer gets infected and he gets his Address Book stolen
2. Spammer uses valid e-mail addresses to send spam through low security SMTP's (which means he can send the emails as billgates@microsoft.com)
3. If some of the emails to whom the SPAM was sent don't exist, billgates@microsoft.com is going to receive the "Undelivered email" message.
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joeby52 Just Arrived
Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 0
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Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 12:04 am Post subject: |
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Thanx judicandus.
I'll post the log.
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Groovicus Trusted SF Member
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 9 Location: Centerville, South Dakota
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Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 12:13 am Post subject: |
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It is also possible that someone is simply using your email address as the sender, in which case you can't really do anything.
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capi SF Senior Mod
Joined: 21 Sep 2003 Posts: 16777097 Location: Portugal
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Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 12:23 am Post subject: |
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Exactly. It is very very easy to spoof an email's From field. It is not uncommon to see spam forging the sender from a valid address in a list, in order to appear more legitimate.
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joeby52 Just Arrived
Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 0
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Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 8:55 am Post subject: my email beiing used to send spam |
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Since my last post I have received info that spam has been sent to everyone in my contact list. What can i do to stop this?
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AdamV SF Mod
Joined: 06 Oct 2004 Posts: 24 Location: Leeds, UK
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Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 9:19 am Post subject: |
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Nothing.
A fairly standard scenario:
Someone you know sends an email to a whole bunch of people, including you. It's likely you may know many or all of the people on the distribution list of that email.
One of those people gets a virus of some kind whiich is harvesting email addresses and sending them "back to the mother ship". This harvesting is often not from address books but also from the actual headers of all your previous emails sent and received - so the email which went to you and your friends has been read and all the email addresses from it have been sent to the spammers.
The spammers send emails out to all the people in their lists, and choose one of the email addresses in the list to use as the "from" address. They cycle this round so everyone gets a turn (nice and fair, no?).
So it is possible for all your friends to get an email that claims to be from you which you simply never sent. And then they will get dozens more each claiming to be from other friends, and from complete strangers.
Of course, some of the harvested email addresses will turn out to be duds. (for example, you sent an email and got the address wrong, then got a bounce and resent to the right address - an email address harvester would collect the right and wrong formats without knowing the difference). If the spammer sends to a wrong email address, the ISP or company will send a non-delivery report to the supposed sender, in this case that's you.
Now, I'm not saying you could not have been hacked, or that you are not the one with the virus. I'm just saying that in every likelihood it is someone else and you are just collateral damage. The symptoms you describe just sound that way to me, based on previous experiences. To be on the safe side you may want to change your email account password (and the secret question you would use when requesting a reset, if they use that method).
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joeby52 Just Arrived
Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 0
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Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 4:45 pm Post subject: Thanx |
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Thanx for all your help people.
Given me new info and plenty to think about.
Much appreciated.
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