Vista - spam email from my account

I have a problem with spam email, which is being sent to people from my email
account address book. It masks itself as having my email address.
I think this happened due to one virus, which probably hijacked the contact
list from my email account. I have removed the virus, but all the people
still receive the same spam email, supposedly from me. Is there something
that can be done about this? I am not even sure where the emails are being
sent from, I only assume it is no longer from my email account. Thanks

"Spam Email From My Account" <Spam Email From My
Account@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:28A79EED-D1BD-431B-9000-A69849D8CB09@microsoft.com...
>I have a problem with spam email, which is being sent to people from my
>email
> account address book. It masks itself as having my email address.
> I think this happened due to one virus, which probably hijacked the
> contact
> list from my email account. I have removed the virus, but all the people
> still receive the same spam email, supposedly from me. Is there something
> that can be done about this? I am not even sure where the emails are being
> sent from, I only assume it is no longer from my email account. Thanks


The virus could still be in your Restore Points. Just a thought.

"Bareill" wrote:

>
> "Spam Email From My Account" <Spam Email From My
> Account@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:28A79EED-D1BD-431B-9000-A69849D8CB09@microsoft.com...
> >I have a problem with spam email, which is being sent to people from my
> >email
> > account address book. It masks itself as having my email address.
> > I think this happened due to one virus, which probably hijacked the
> > contact
> > list from my email account. I have removed the virus, but all the people
> > still receive the same spam email, supposedly from me. Is there something
> > that can be done about this? I am not even sure where the emails are being
> > sent from, I only assume it is no longer from my email account. Thanks
>
>
> The virus could still be in your Restore Points. Just a thought.
>
> well, I'm not sure what "restore points" are, so I can't judge if it would help. thanks for the advice though.
any other suggestions? I would appreciate them

found out what the "restore points" are & will try to do that, it will take
some time to find out whether it helped though.
anyone else is welcome to give advice in the meantime, thanks

Spam Email From My Account wrote:
> I have a problem with spam email, which is being sent to people from my email
> account address book. It masks itself as having my email address.
> I think this happened due to one virus, which probably hijacked the contact
> list from my email account. I have removed the virus, but all the people
> still receive the same spam email, supposedly from me. Is there something
> that can be done about this? I am not even sure where the emails are being
> sent from, I only assume it is no longer from my email account. Thanks


Once one spammer has an email address they all have it. Typically
spammers harvest them from newsgroups like this one which is why it's
suggested you use one of the MS fake ones. Mine is genuine and gets
about 500-1000 spam mails a day

Another way addresses get around is when someone sends you (Say) a joke
and includes 100 people in the email instead of sending to themselves
and putting all those addresses in the BCC (Blind carbon copy) field.
Any machine that receives that email will have all those genuine
addresses to play with and worse still if you are on that list and get
an email from someone else on that list you are more likely to know the
person and open the email.

Although some malicious software will use the contact list or other data
from an infected computer this is not by any means the only way, and of
course it is fairly easy to spoof or fake the data contained in an
email. What you could do is ask a friend to "Forward" you a copy of such
an email and then look at the header data in it... whatever the email
address it claims as "Sender" I bet it's not from your IP address.

Charlie

Spam Email From My Account wrote:
> I have a problem with spam email, which is being sent to people from my email
> account address book. It masks itself as having my email address.
> I think this happened due to one virus, which probably hijacked the contact
> list from my email account. I have removed the virus, but all the people
> still receive the same spam email, supposedly from me. Is there something
> that can be done about this? I am not even sure where the emails are being
> sent from, I only assume it is no longer from my email account. Thanks


In all likelihood, there's nothing wrong with your computer. What
does your antivirus application report? To whom have you granted access
through your firewall?

The way many mass emailing worms work is that they send out emails
from the infected machine to every address it finds, and it randomly
selects one of those found addresses to place in the "from" fields. What
this means is that someone else who has your email address in his/her
contact list is actually the infected party. You might consider
advising everyone with who you've recently corresponded that they should
all perform virus scans.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

"Bareill" <bareill@yahoo.co.uk> wrote
>
> "Spam Email From My Account" <Spam Email From My
> Account@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>>I have a problem with spam email, which is being sent to people from my
>>email
>> account address book. It masks itself as having my email address.
>> I think this happened due to one virus, which probably hijacked the
>> contact
>> list from my email account. I have removed the virus, but all the people
>> still receive the same spam email, supposedly from me. Is there something
>> that can be done about this? I am not even sure where the emails are
>> being
>> sent from, I only assume it is no longer from my email account. Thanks

> The virus could still be in your Restore Points. Just a thought.

A virus in a restore point doesn't do anything. Only if one were to restore
to that point would the malware have an impact.

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

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Spam Email From My Account wrote:
> I have a problem with spam email, which is being sent to people from my email
> account address book. It masks itself as having my email address.
> I think this happened due to one virus, which probably hijacked the contact
> list from my email account. I have removed the virus, but all the people
> still receive the same spam email, supposedly from me. Is there something
> that can be done about this? I am not even sure where the emails are being
> sent from, I only assume it is no longer from my email account. Thanks

Why not post the headers from one of these eamils so we can find where
it is really coming from. Obfuscate your email address and anyone's in
the header that you know, so those addresses aren't scraped from the
newsgroup.

You might be surprised where they are really coming from.

- --
Iron Feliks

Trolls are like babies. After feeding, they get stinky.
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