**HELP** Computer problem (SPAM)

[keithmantle]

Hi All, Hope someone can help me, my laptop (Sony VGN-NR11S/S) has been infiltrated by something/one and is sending spam to all contacts in my address book, i have AVG 2011,Avast,Malwarebytes,Ad-aware,Spybot +all microsoft vista anti-virus etc, i Have just done a scan with Malwarebytes and it shows no problems, any help would be appreciated. Keith ps sorry to anyone who has received spam with my name on it

[Arpeggio]

Hi Keith,
If this is to do with Hotmail - then (sadly) it's not an uncommon problem. It's certainly happened to me in the past. I'm not a computer expert though. When it happened to me I accessed my hotmail account settings and changed my password. The problem was solved and (so far) hasn't returned yet. If it's not Hotmail then all I can suggest is to 'Google' for solutions, contact your service provider or wait for more expert advice from more knowledgeable people on this forum.

Bests.....Rob

[stratmantd]

Keith, I agree with Rob that if this is Hotmail related then it's something that happens on a fairly regular basis.

As far as all the anti-virus software that you have on your system: they are working against each otherand not doing your machine any good.

You need to remove all of your anti-virus software apart from one. The one you keep is up to you but I would suggest either AVG or Avast. They are both highly thought-of products.

[Mark Burton]

Keith

As I said in email earlier today - change of hotmail password will probably cure it

mark.

[AlanMcKillop]

It's not restricted to Hotmail, I had similar issues with Yahoo but as has already been mentioned, change your password ... it worked for me as well.

[Mark Burton]

Just got another one Keith - have you changed the password yet ???

[hernando]

If this is not down to a virus or malware, it is highly likely that your email account has been compromised or stolen.

The big clue to this having happened is when email is being received by contacts in your address book, apparently from you, but it's just not you sending it!

Unfortunately it is all to easy nowadays for email credentials to fall into the wrong hands, especially if
- You have a weak password that's easy to guess
- Your account credentials have been sniffed in an open WiFi hotspot
- You simply shared the account information with someone you should not have

If this has happened, I would strongly advise that simply changing your password is not enough.
You also need to change any and all security related information associated with the stolen account.

So, once you've regained access to your account you should also check:

Email address or alternate email address - verify that all email addresses associated with that account are yours. If they aren't change them right away.

"Secret" questions and their answers - change all your secret answers immediately. Even if they've been untouched, the attacker could simply have written them down and know them all. Change them to something new - ideally answers that are completely unrelated to the questions, but that you'll be able to remember in the future.

Phone number information - change or remove this information.

Billing information - change or remove this information and check with your credit card provider immediately for any improper charges.

Hope this helps.

[keithmantle]

Thanks for all the advice,will change my password and see if it cures it.

[geoff1711]

Hi

This happened to me a couple of weeks back, I have two main accounts, one with MSN the other Yahoo, it was the Yahoo address which was sending out the emails, but not from my machine, some went out when not only was I not on line but both my machines were switched off.

I run Norton on all of my home computers and it found nothing, and still they went out, as Jim would testify, I restored both machines and again some went out, eventually I reset my Yahoo password and it seem's to have stopped.

Oddly though I've had another contact who had similar and he reckoned it was actually a virus on one of his contacts machine, which targets multiple mail addresses on round robin type emails then sends out links from one of those addresses.

i.e. I send an email out to my friends Fred, John, Harry, Bert, Sid and Frank, one has this virus on his machine and it picks one, or all of these names and then proceeds to send emails supposedly from them to all of his contacts plus multiple names found in his inbox.

I've never followed the links when they've come to me but I understand they are a mixture of adverts and fairly hardcore porn, plus of course once opened then proceed to infect your machine.

At the time this happened to me my brother in law got hit with a virus called Ransom, which locked up his machine and demanded a sum to debug it, my daughter's laptop got this, or similar, last December but a new version of Norton soon got rid of it.

What jolly good fun computers are!!

Geoff

[keithmantle]

Hi Geoff, same here, emails sent from my computer when i wasn't online, i have changed my hotmail password and have tried to un-install AVG 2011 but computer says NO, error code 0xC0070643 ,any ideas , i will be losing friends soon !!