e-mail warning

Since late yesterday evening, I have now had 11 of you send me e-mails, telling me that I had sent them e-mails containing suspicious links. I did not send any one any kinkd of e-mail.


My computer is kept up to date with Norton Ant-Virus, has been since new, and I have never had any kind virus problem since the day I bought it last summer. Also, I use Windows Defender as a back-up to the Norton.



Both are automatically having their definitions being updated several times a day.



I checked last night and this morning, with the latest definitions, ran deep cleans, and it comes up 100 % clean.



This was a hassle, but I deleted all 170 contacts out of my address book.



So if you get any e-mail from davidmiley AT yahoo DOT com that basically just contains a link, please don't open it, I didn't send it.



David in SC

I edited your email address to avoid other issues related to posting it in a public forum.

Post Edited By Moderator (Steve n Dallas) : 1/30/2012 9:38:42 AM (GMT-7)

This is a common scam going on these days. I've seen it from many friends over the past couple months.

It is not a computer virus. Some spammer has gotten ahold of your e-mail account.
Step 1 - Change your password on that account
Step 2 - Change the password on EVERY account you have that uses that e-mail account for password verification

The scam is looking to accomplish 2 things:

1) Expand to others via whatever mechanism is procreates
2) Get access to your bank accounts and other places it can get or spend your money. This is the real value they are after. #1 is just to get more people whom they can eventually get #2 from. How it works is simple. If they have your e-mail password, and know you bank at XYZ bank they've got you. They can go to the bank website and request a new password by saying you forgot your username and password. Bank gladly sends you a new one to your e-mail address. They have the password to that e-mail address so they can get the e-mail before you ever see it. Now they are into your bank account. Repeat for every account they can find. Amazon, ebay, paypal, they love them all. Get in there and change all those passwords.

The beauty of this obnoxiousness is that it is not a virus. Most people scan for viruses, see that there is none, and feel they are protected.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you should at least know what you are up against.

The good news is the moment you change the passwords you are pretty close to being cleaned up. You can also immediately see if they have done any damage. Only risk is if they installed a keylogger or some other thing on your computer, but that would usually be found by your anti-virus software.

Yeah I agree with mtsarpilot , changing your password will take care of the problem Dave. I had the same thing happen to one of my hotmail accounts two years ago.

thanks for the advice.

UPDATE: 1130 AM, I got even newer definition, just finished a lengthy deep scan, and this time it found and fixed 54 suspicious problems. So hopefully I am ok again.

Anyone that has known me, knows that I never send "forwarded" emails, or emails with links. Just something I don't do, and with my own email, I never open any email from anyone I don't know, or if I saw an email as described by some of you, I would simply delete it. Not curious enough to foul up my computer.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused, but was honestly clueless until some of you all wrote me about it.

david

The following is probably the #1 scanner....if you want to scan some more... Its free and only runs "on demand."

www.malwarebytes.org/

Maybe David has the paid for version of Yahoo and uses a local email app?!?

But malwarebytes is still worth running on any pc.

i agree that malwarebytes is a good program.  i also use a commerical grade anti-virus software.  but my problem wasn't a virus.  someone got ahold of my e-mail password.

ed

David.

My IT friend who also does my business IT warned me about the Yahoo email scam last week. It seems that both Yahoo and Hot-mail have been major hacked and a lot of email accounts and passwords have been stolen and used maliciously. This is one reason why I do not use either for my business or personal email and if I did I would not store any of my contacts information with either service.  The hacker most likely got your account information online and did not attack your computer or leave a virus on the computer.  I got a similar type email from my financial adviser's personal yahoo account a couple of weeks ago and it contained links to ****ography.  You have enough worries in your life and no need to worry about this any further.

Terry TWG

jamesc = yep, sure did change password, 2nd time in the past month

frackme - not a chance, lol.

I am a Boy Scouts Scoutmaster and our troop has had 3 parents e-mail accounts get hacked in the past month. Some lovely mail getting sent to Boy Scouts. Needless to say we shut down their e-mail access to the distribution list real quick. But still, I have to look at it to see what it was and deal with it appropriately. Just what I want to do on my computer. The solution - I look at them on my smartphone. So far none of this harms smart phones.

The most amazing of these had a link to "Cool Pictures" that came up with a Microsoft official looking page asking you to login. ie. enter your Windows Live username and password. The sad thing is, people are foolish enough to do it. The most simple way to snag a username and password. One of the hacked parents admitted to being foolish enough to do it.

I run the free home version of Avast. It is a great anti-virus program and constantly updates. (I think better than Norton and the cost is zero) I also run Malwarebytes ------- a great program for removing stuff that the others miss. I usually run that along with Spybot Search and Destroy once a fortnight just in case something gets through. They occasionally will pick up malware that antivirus programs don't see as a danger.
Bill

Click this link. It has the word FREE in big letters:

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free

 

We should all get in the habit of changing our e-mail passwords often...Maybe even once a week. And keep that password unique, use it for e-mail only. At the first sign of trouble, change ALL your important (money) passwords.

Most financial institutions require that you answer one or more security questions before they will change your password, then they send you an e-mail confirming the change..This makes life difficult for hackers..

If you use PayPal, you need to be VERY careful about responding to emails that claim to be from PayPal and spoof the PayPal web-site perfectly.. NEVER use the hot-link included in the email.