E-mail problem

[Wodrick]

I consider myself reasonably computer literate but the intricacies of e-mail and the internet have never been absorbed by my cell.


It seems my address book has been compromised and I am sending links to money making schemes. They are in the form of a link to a web site.


About 40, seemingly random, addressees are being graced with these offers. The link scans, with Avast, virus free. My computer scans Virus free. Malwarebites found no problems.


My machine has four e-mail clients loaded, Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail and Thunderbird. Thunderbird is what I use the others are never opened.


My e-mail is either BTYahoo or G mail and the mails seem to originate from my BTYahoo address.


This means that I have a possibility of six sent items folders none of which show any activity.


It's Windows XP media, Thunderbird and BTYahoo that is my normal configuration. G mail is used for incomings and mail from there is forwarded to my BT account.


This irritant needs to be got rid of but I have no idea how. Help please

[AndoniP]

you sure nobody's compromised your yahoo account? try changing the password for it.

then run adaware on your pc, and spybot. then to make sure, run hijackthis and see if anything untoward is being loaded up on your PC. if these scans are clear it might point to your yahoo account.

[Saab Dastard]

How do you know that you are sending these spam emails?

Are you receiving undeliverable message emails?

About 40, seemingly random, addressees are being graced with these offers.

Are these random addresses from your address book? Or just random email addresses?

SD

[BOAC]

Wodrick - you are probably suffering what has been explained many times here. YOU are almost certainly NOT sending the emails. Someone else is 'forging' your address as the from address (easy if you know how). If you wish to prove this to yourself, insert an address in your address book such as itsme@DannyFynesprivate email.com and it will almost certainly bounce (I hope...................:rolleyes:) in which case it would be you sending!

[HuntandFish]

I had a similar issue with Yahoo . Old addresses in my Contacts were used as well as valid current ones so i got undeliverable mail messages . Ran scans which removed some adware and changed my Yahoo password . It has been Ok since . Must change the password regularly though .

[Wodrick]

How do you know that you are sending these spam emails?


My own address is in my address book they are always from [email protected]

Are you receiving undeliverable message emails?

Yes, usually from known bad addresses that have not been deleted, that's how I know it's an old address book, some of them are from companies that ceased trading six years ago, long before I started using Thunderbird.Are these random addresses from your address book? Or just random email addresses?
They are seemingly random addresses from my book. My address book is not vast say 150 entries and the mails usually go to about 40, some of which bounce. Some are getting through.

[Paraffin Budgie]

I don't know if this is relevant, but when this happened to me using my Yahoo account, I found that something/someone had inserted a holiday response into my account settings.

This was sending automatic responses out to anyone who had emailed me (and, somehow, to people who had not). McAfee showed that a Chinese computer had got into the system somehow on several occasions despite the firewall.

[Wodrick]

With one hand firmly grasping wood, I have done all the suggested scans - nada so I changed my password. Nothing yet.

[Milo Minderbinder]

Whats happened is someone has read your password off your machine, and then logged into your account online elsewhere and is generating spam through your online account, and using your address book.

Sometimes just changing your password and security questions are enough to stop it, but my ex-wife was plagued recently with repeats of this on her AOL even though she changed her password three times
The problem was that the "ghost sender" wasn't logging off and so wasn't affected by the password changes - which would only kick in when they logged off and back in again
We only cured it after we got AOL to sever all logins to her account at their end, forcing all users to log in, simultaneously with them imposing yet anotther password reset. That fixed it, no more problems

This particular case was with AOL, but any webmail service could be hacked in this way
An important thing to note as well is that I sanitized the machine after the first sign of problems and made sure it was clean, however the damage had been done. They'd nicked the logon credentials beforehand - possibly when she logged into her mail through her fathers computer.
Remember - you are at risk on ANY machine you use, not just your own

[Wodrick]

Do you mean remotely Milo? 'cos if not must be the wife ! nobody else has been near it and we don't use any other machines.

[Milo Minderbinder]

it could be an infection on your machine compromised your password and relayed it back to whoever is the ghost mailer
You may not even be aware you had been infected
It takes seconds to reveal stored email passwords with a legit tool such as Nirsoft's MailPassView
The hackers have it down to a fine art - run a script on a website, relay the password back, then delete the infection leaving no trace.
Obviously we don't know exactly what got you - but something did and there are lots around

it could have been a website running a script
a script in an e-mail
if the firewall isn't working it could even be a breach through an open port
Many, many ways
Do you use your email password for other sites e.g. Facebook / Youtube / banking......

[Wodrick]

So this is the idea behind "NoScript" then or am I grasping the wrong end of the stick ?

[Milo Minderbinder]

Spot on
If you can block scripts from running on web pages, then you've stopped the easiest attack route

[Wodrick]

OK thanks to the combined assistance received the compromised address book problem seems to have gone. Nothing since the measures various carried out.
I had a web page redirection problem this week but have sorted that out.

However a new game appears, once again I have no idea.

Whenever I am sent a mail with a movie attachment, .WMV or similar, not a YouTube link Thunderbird downloads multiple copies, 47 of one movie last night. BTYahoo's inbox only shows one copy and that as read, but T'bird just keeps on downloading. All other attachments are treated normally.

XP media edition, Thunderbird 12.0.1, and BTYahoo as Mail provider.

[Milo Minderbinder]

either your connection is crashing or the file is too big for your e-mail provider to handle
or theres a virus in it which is getting picked up by your security software
Increase the time-out settings in the e-mail program (I don't know where that is without checking)
If its just the one e-mail thats causing the problem, just download it with webmail - and then delete it through webmail