You should be worried.
I’m not sure that I’d say you’ve been “hacked into”, but my guess is that your email account has indeed been compromised.
I’ll look at what likely happened, why this isn’t like other “Someone’s sending from my email address!” kind of issues, and what steps you need to take next.
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Most email programs now carefully protect against unauthorized address book access.
While that’s still a possibility – and you should absolutely make sure that your anti-malware tools are running and up to date – it’s not nearly as common as it once was. Most email programs now carefully protect against unauthorized address book access.
What more likely occurred is that your email account has been compromised – meaning that you probably have an on-line email account, free or otherwise, that someone has gained access too. By virtue of doing so they now have access not only to your email, but to your address book as well. It’s all too common these days to hear of folks whose accounts have been compromised only to have all their friends get inundated with spam, threats, malicious emails or messages that try to impersonate you and scam your contacts out of money.
How this happened is difficult to say. It could be anything from a weak password that’s easy to guess, to your account credentials being sniffed in an open WiFi hotspot, to your simply having shared the account information with someone you should not have.
For all we know, it could also be a roommate walking up to your computer when you’re not using it and sending messages right then and there.
(And for the record, last year there was a partial account compromise at one of the larger free email services – account credentials were stolen without the users having done anything wrong. Same result.)
I’ve talked before about email that appears to come from you, but in fact does not. This is different. Specifically:
- Spam email is sent to random people you don’t know, “spoofing” the From: address to make it look like it comes from you when it does not. There is almost nothing that can be done about this.
- Email from stolen accounts is sent to people in your address book, and is not spoofed at all – it really is coming from your account. It’s just not you sending it.
Changing your password is not enough.
Not even close.
As I’ve discussed before, changing your password is important, but it’s not nearly enough. You also need to change any and all security related information associated with the stolen account. Why? Because the thief has access to all that too, and he can use that information to steal your account again. And again. And again.
The article Is changing my password enough? details the additional steps you must take if your account has been compromised.
And if it is a virus, switching your email client might help. Like from Outlook express to Thunderbird. For example if a virus hijacks your Outlook express account and sends out spam and/or viruses to your contacts list. If this is the case simple switching to another email account won’t work, you need to uninstall it or the virus will continue to exploit it in the background. Also, I’m not really sure if you can actually uninstall Outlook Express since as long as the address book is still there the viruses can still exploit it. You might have to export the address list to T-bird and delete all of your outlook express addresses manually.
PS don’t use your real mother’s maiden name or first pet etc. use a word as difficult to guess as your password and keep a copy safely hidden.
I get spam almost daily from “myself”. At least the “from” tag is that part of my email address that precedes the @. Not a problem, in fact it seems self-defeating to fake the source as the same as the destination.
I too was “hacked” in my Yahoo account. Another user e-mail address was added and my password was changed. It happened at 8:45 PM (I received confirmation msgs from Yahoo) and fortunately I caught it early the next morning.
Using Yahoo’s secret responses to security questions I was able to regain my account and change the password.
However, my home computer address book was Not hacked but it was my Yahoo address book that was used (I haven’t used it for years and forgot about it). I emptied my Yahoo address book.
I POP3 my mail to my computer (I don’t believe in leaving any of my data in the cloud). So far my spam count has not risen but …
Hope this helps. rgds, Mike
My yahoo e-mail was hacked several months ago. When I contacted yahoo, they were no help at all. An e-mail was sent out to everyone in my address book about some fantastic sale. I’m sure the link in the e-mail contained a virus. Luckily, a copy went to my computer literate brother, who immediately recognized that I would never send out such a sloppy e-mail with poor grammar and misspelled words. I was able to contact everyone and alert them not to open the e-mail within minutes of the time it went out. My address book had disappeared, so I typed a hard copy into a word processing program, and when I send e-mails, I simply copy and post the addresses into the e-mail. It happened once again recently, but the only address in my address book was one for Bit Defender which is an anti-virus program. I have other e-mail accounts I use for important correspondence. They do not contain any address books.
Leo,
I think the email account does not need to be compromised for this to happen… but correct me if I am wrong:
1st, many people still keep sending emails to loads of people in CC rather than using BCC. That makes those emails easy picking and ripe for the harvest by bots… and they will be added, alongside yours, to spam lists, etc.
2nd, spammers these days have ways (a simple script can do this I think you mention it and it’s called spoofing) to have any email inserted in the sent from… and sent to anyone they want, including all those found in not only spammers’ lists but also those harvested from your CC fields. The familiar, recognizable email address on the sent from will make your friends trust the email… and get their machines compromised.
I have received emails from myself ~: with spam…
My email accounts have not been hacked into. It’s a gamble… if your email has been around long enough, chances are, it will fall in the hands of spammers, even if you take all precautions, because many of your friends may not and will still expose your email on that CC field…
Maybe the best option (and I do not use it because still could not find something I like) is one of those automatic replies, that requires a one time confirmation — proof that a human, not a bot, is on the other side of the line…
Know of any free PHO or CGI script that does this Leo?
What can also be done is create a “key” that tells your friends the email really is from you, for example, inserting in the subject line, before anything else, a signature of sorts… ex., {JaySafe2read}
Thanks for your time and all the wonderful work you do here.
Joao
I understand the appeal of challenge/response systems as they’re known, but I hate them. They make the sender of an email pay the price in time and inconvenience. Most of the time if I get such a challenge, I ignore it, as I’m sure many people do. You won’t get spam, but you also won’t get a lot of emails you want. Imagine having a newsletter of 100,000 subscribers and getting challenge response floods every time you send a newsletter. And that’s this article: What’s this confirmation request I got when I emailed someone?
And for completeness, here’s my article on using BCC to reduce spam: How does using BCC help reduce spam?
06-Jan-2010
I have the same problem. Twice now I had e-mails sent to contacts from my address book. The first time I took the computer to the shop, installed malwarebytes antimalware and thought I waa safe. On Monday, 15.02.2010 it happened again. The computer shop says I need to contact Yahoo. I did contact them and all I received was an acknowledgement.
How can I delete my Yahoo e-mail address?
What else can I do?
Thank you
Sandy
My father, not very computer literate has just experienced this problem too. I have checked his sent box and the spam mails have not come from his account and he too has received a copy so it would appear that someone has managed to access his yahoo account, collected all his contact details and is now spamming the list and making it look like the mails are from him. I don’t think it is an issue of using CC rather than BCC because it has been sent to the entire address book. He hasn’t contacted Yahoo yet but surely it must be a problem at their end or are we saying that a spammer has managed to read his computer when he was logged on and then harvest the info? Is there anything he can do or will his contact list now get passed round the world of spammers? I’ll advise him to run a virus check, change his password and set up an additional email address to use in future and see how that works but any other advice would be welcome.
theres an email getting around at the moment (may 2010) with subject “huhu” and a link to this address [email address removed] clicking on that address from within your hotmail client results in the same email you received (and clicked on the link contained therein) being sent to everybody in your address book. i would love to know how this works? is my password compromised? is it a security hole in hotmail only?
This got sent to about 59 people in my add book or from a forwarded e mail
look?Beautiful China’s online store
I recommend to you a very good shopping site >.
The quality of product is had better, the service is perfect,
and price is had better, the speed of the deliver is very fast.
There are own warehouse and store,
there is customer in the whole world, receive customer very high praise.
MSN: [email removed]
Somehow recently my Hotmail account has sent out links with ads to everyone on my Contact List. It sent the messages out in pairs as well and there was no subject in the Subject line. I had even chnaged my PW since the last time it happened. Last time it did it at 2am when my PC was shut down. This time i was online and noticed the messages and once I sent out a legit message the SPAM stopped sending messages to the remaining folks on my list. It has been sending them in pairs in alpha order. I run and scan with MS Security and McAfee and my PC is clean.
I do run Messenger all the time but only to notify me if I have email.
I wonder if that is the issue?
I do get lots of incoming SPAM on Hotmail and wonder if i get caught there when opening something although Hotmail doesn’t seem to do a good job screening.
05-Jun-2010
Curious my PW is comprimised when I never enter it. I use Messenger (click to auto login in to Hotmail) and it saves it encrypted. I also changed it since the last time this happened (just in case).
This time i noticed it stopped once I sent a legit message out so that must have stopped the script from running through all my Contacts (and it send the SPAM in pairs of contact in alph order. I deleted my Contact list just in case.
This has happened twice. I’ve changed my password and added malware. I am hearing from a lot of people that this happened to them from the came canadian pharmacy (who knows if it’s really a pharmacy). Is there any agency that traces this kind of stuff. Everyone in my contact list got it.
This is happening to me too. I thought it was a virus on my particular PC and ran all the anti malware programs I could find. I eventually reformatted my hard drive and lost a few $1000 of software attempting to eliminate the virus–no luck. It still mailed ads for viagra and porn to all my contacts. I changed the name and extension of my windows address book, then noticed it was going after my contacts in my Yahoo email. I went through all my contacts and copied each email address into the ‘notes’ window (changing the ‘@’ character to ‘(AT)’) then replaced the email address with a dummy ‘raf@novirus.com’. Now whenever the attacker tries to send the email, I get a ‘failure to deliver’ notification. In this way I’ve been able to determine that the virus is not on my personal PC. I have left that off and/or unplugged from the network where I work. Instead, I have been using other computers. But I still receive ‘failure to deliver’ notifications now and then. Perhaps these are test to see if my contacts have changed back to real addresses. The only problem with this approach is the name field is not shown in the notification, so I have no way of tracking who is being targeted. I could go back and re-edit my contacts to ‘name’@novirus.com since the domain itself is false (I hope) but that is a lot of work I don’t really have time for. This thing has cost me way too much time and money already.
19-Jun-2010
My 10+ year old hotmail account received an email from someone I knew better a few years back- no subject, just a url in the text and a couple of attachments. I thought I didnt open it but maybe I did…because I remembered it when I started getting input from folks on my address list that they were getting the same thing.
I cleared most of my contacts, but it seems the damage has already been done, and I keep seeing some postmaster failures for a couple of address list connections, so it seems to be methodically running periodically- sending to about 5 addresses at a time.
OK-It sounds like I have to give up my account and start fresh. Do I need to tell everyone in my address book to do the same? That would go over well…no chance I could send them a link to a fixityourselfshop? And if I start a fresh Hotmail account, this virus wont jump to that email account?
someone from yahoo instant message keeps sending things everytime i get on yahoo to people in a foriegn langauge to people on my list how do i stop it i tryed changing my name my password its not working people are getting mad with me i m not not sending the file how can i stop this
This is about the comment from Josh. I have also come across this “huhu” virus in hotmail, and using google with various search terms it looks like THIS article is the only reference to this bug. How can this “huhu” virus be removed?
Becky W. I know exactly what your talking about, my hotmail account is like… 5 years old and im getting postmaster failures every milisecond! its pissing me off! I want to kill it! I havn’t touched any type of stupid advertisment or anything like that, so it can just die >.
I sent an email to all my contacts telling them I’ve been hacked, and to not open anything that purports to come from me if it says “No Subject.” Instead, delete it as soon as they see it. Every time I send an email, it has a subject title, and since all my contacts know what I’m about, they will recognize most if not all subjects as coming from me. “No Subject” will not come from me. This will not stop the spam, but it may help protect my contacts from opening something that contains a virus, and in any event, will keep them from wasting their time.
please help!!!
someone has stolen my account. i have lost all my contacts.i cant even gain access to my account.people keep calling. they got an email from me saying i was stranded in england and needed $3000 to get home. how do i stop this?
29-Sep-2010
{url removed} is using my e-mail address to all my contacts. what can I do???? Please help.
Thanks
Ken
01-Nov-2010
So Ken, I too have the pill company e-mail referenced in the questions above. But one thing I was unclear about. The e-mails appear to be coming from my account and going to my contact list. However, there’s no record of the e-mails going out as “sent.” Does this mean that the “hacker” has compromised the account, or is there something different at work here?
04-Nov-2010
I have been hacked twice, both times while I was using Outlook 2003 and then Outlook 2007. They used my address book to do mailings to all my contacts, all pointing to a Chinese Website selling iPhones and iPods, etc., with the subject heading selling Cheap Computers, iPhones iPods, etc. This happened AFTER I purchased something on eBay from a Chinese seller and I got hacked by their email! I removed Outlook 2003 and never got hacked again until I installed Outlook 2007. Coincidence? Seriously doubt it! So far I see no cures or fixes and Microsoft denies it even being real. It most certainly has to be my fault! The real fix is NOT using Microsoft Out 2007, 2003 and having the address book stored on your computer.
How do I cure being hacked by the pill company? Do I need a new email account?
05-Nov-2010
Millions of people are being hacked into through hotmail, including me. they are sending emails from me to my contact list. Why is hotmail acting like its our fault and there is nothing we can do? seriously? You know you can prevent this. Please do it.
Someone hacked my Yahoo account. The,”Benificiary,” in this case are illegal prescription companies pretending to be in Canada (likely sugar pills). Anway by what method would the virus get the password?
12-Nov-2010
Hi drugoutletmeds is sending all my contacts emails with attachments i then get postmaster sending failed reports to me (100s per day) but a friend called me today to say they are actually getting through. how do i stop these emails being sent??
12-Nov-2010
This is a wonderful article that basically says there is nothing you can do to protect your email account from being compromised other than not use easy to guess passwords.
This is not at all true. I have email accounts with several providers and only those hosted by mail.com have ever been hacked – and multiple times in the past few months. My wife also uses multiple email accounts and a different personal computer – Only her account with mail.com has been compromised.
Imagine, if you will, a “virus” so clever and devious that it is undetectable by any virus scanner currently available. Further imagine that this clever virus is happy to restrict its attack to only one of the 12 different email providers that it finds on your personal computer.
It seems to me your best bet is to move to a different email provider. gmail.com seems to be the most sophisticated of the providers I’ve dealt with in terms of security – and given google’s reputation, I’d expect them to be more serious about security than any other general email provider.
AND gmail service is free and offers much more capabilities than almost any other email provider – still for free.
I need help stopping people from using my account to send emails from my e mail address.
All I saw on this page was yes they are doing it.
I need help to resolve the issue!
01-Dec-2010
There are e-mails being sent to my contacts that look like I sent. That is bad enough but what makes it worse is that it says I made money on-line and includes a links for my contacts to click on. This has happened twice with-in 4 days.
I can’t open my email because someone has hacked into my account and is sendig emails to my contacts and who nows who else is getting them and what they’re sending . I need to know how I can get my email account back and open my emails !
08-Dec-2010
I have had my email ‘hacked’ and emails sent to my contacts. I got pretty annoyed by this and decided to close my account. Even after I closed my account emails were still being sent to my contacts with my email address, that I closed, as the sender.
15-Dec-2010
Does deleting contacts from your account help or is the whole thing gonna keep happening because its “hacked”?…. my teacher was sent viagra emails with my address. :(…. funny but embarrassing
19-Dec-2010
One easy way to tell ALL your contacts how to tell if an e-mail is really from you is this …..
When e-mail accounts are compromised, that’s just what IS compromised. What you actually write can’t be predicted so just send an e-mail to all your contacts telling them that legitimate e-mails from YOU can be identified by a word or phrase at the end of the actual e-mail.. eg:’yowzer-yowzer’
Spammers may have everyone’s e-mail and may even attempt to send spy bots for looting but they cannot predict what key word or phrase you have to enter in all messages to tell the recipient that the e-mail is valid. If you get an e-mail from a friend that does not have this agreed word at the end of the message, you can investigate further or scrap it.
Someone is sending spam Ads on my email page. Is there any way I can find out who is sending this, can I backlog and find out their email somehow?
I think they may have downloaded this Java network as a virus, so now Ads can be posted freely on my email.
I WANT TO BLOCK MY BOX,{removed by moderator}@gmail.com
14-Jan-2011
Is it possible this happened to me through hotmail as I have added it to my Verizon Android phone? I am not certain but am curious as to whether that is how I was compromised? Any ideas would be welcomed. I have deleted the email accounts from my phone and changed all my email passwords as well as deleted my contact lists. Should this be enough? Thanks in advance.
24-Mar-2011
spam was being sent to all of my contacts so I deleted ALL contacts…yet when I start a NEW email and type the first letter of the TO:address a huge list of address’s that I don’t recognise pop up to pick from! Any way to help me?
This is an informative and well written letter explaining this common problem. However, you should at least mention that adding an SPF record will help this problem considerably. Even though most of your readers may not be technical enough to do this themselves, it is something that I believe many email hosts can/do provide.
have been hacked My mother who is 86 thinks I’m sending dirty stuff !!!
I don’t want to join a club!!!!! I want to know how do I stop my hotmail account from sending things like to my friends ” Have only powerful erection” This is coming from my hotmail account and people are wondering about me. I have told people that it is not from me, however, I have another account and WE are still getting these emails, that look like they are from me. Ever a Minister has contacted me and asked if I would stop sending these types of emails. I can’t I am not sending this MESS.
I need help I don’t need to comment to join a club of people who have been hacked, I need answers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
18-Jul-2011
As everyone else here, I too am having problems with my yahoo account. I’m sending single links to myself, contacts, and apparently to many other email addresses that I don’t recognize, judging my sent folder. Considering I’m using dial up internet, and I had trouble loading every page of posts here, so forgive me if I repeat the same type of info that someone else already has. (I did read a few pages, please don’t delete me Leo! ).
When going in to change my password, secret question and security seal, I noticed that there is a place in yahoo accounts that allows you to see your login history. I looked at mine, and OMG! Here’s a little bit of what I saw:
Jul 19, 2011 2:00 PM Yahoo! Mobile Logged In Poland
Jul 19, 2011 4:47 PM Y! Messenger Authentication Logged In US
#Today# 3:17 AM Yahoo! Mobile Logged In Bulgaria
#Today# 11:23 AM Browser Mail Access AL, US
The later info being really me, and yes I had problems signing in today, it suggested I change my password. I do not use yahoo messenger. And I don’t use my cell phone to check my email. I do, however, send pictures to my email via cell phone..not sure if that matters or not. The login history also shows that the people who are logging in with their cell phone lives in other countries, although when I traced the spam’s IP, it came back to California. Figures…
My account may not be saved, but maybe this info will help others narrow down possible reasons of how these people are taking our accounts!
@Miss Molly, Good Golly
If you can login to your Yahoo account, I suggest you immediately change your password and security question(s). Also verify that the alternate email address belongs to you, if not, change that too.
someone is using my yahoo account and it is not me. plus sending my friends bad e-mails. what can i do?
28-Jul-2011
if i shut down my yahoo! account, will that solve the problem??
@Jessica
If your Yahoo email account is sending out the spam, closing it would stop the spam in most cases. But if the hackers copied your address book and are spoofing your email address, then the spam would continue.
This is the message that has hitched onto my address book: “whats up this is the best thing that ever happened to me” followed by a spam link.
I have completed multiple malware type scans, and they all say there is no problem. I removed my email address from my address book and it continued to send the messages to everyone else, but not me. I have emptied my address book, but obviously this is not convenient. Any suggestions?
Hello, thanks for sharing your knowledge on the spam emails.
I use hotmail service and I received several postmaster mails with the ‘delivery status notification (Failure)’ subject, all because of an email I didnt send, and some of those failure deliveries were contacts which are on my contact list. I went to the ‘sent’ folder and I found the spam email which I didnt send, and tried to see whom else that spam email was sent, but the ‘To’ field is empty, why is that?, and what do you recommend I should do?
Thanks very much
08-Aug-2011
Hi , somebody entered in my email account and is using it, my friends see me on line while I am not, I cannot enter it, does anyone have an emergency email in which I can tell them to block it?
thanks
appriciate Mario
over 20 emails were sent from my account at the same time. ” No Subject” and the threads are all different..
they are all for a Canadian drug company selling Viagra. My virus protection is up to date…what do I do now close yahoo email? I am assuming that each email has some of the 235 names in my address book.
What should I do now? I never open emails with No Subject, that is usually a clue.
30-Aug-2011
@anthoula
Virus protection on your computer will be of no assistance in this case as it sounds like your Yahoo account has been hacked into. You should immediately sign into your account (if you still can) and change the password, contact phone, and all of your security questions. This time make your password very long, complicated and secure.
I am getting many emails that are intended for another person in my inbox and as junk mail. In turn my computer is randomly generating spam emails to people who are not in my address book but I have contact with. I have run a scan on computer which picked up virus but how do I get my email account differentiated from the other persons on hotmail. There seems to be no service contact.
14-Sep-2011
Hi, e-mails were sent to MY contacts seeming to have come from me. However nothing appeared in my Sent Items and there is no other proof that it came from other than my e-mail address in the From: address. I have a strong password, have NOT accessed my mail from a WiFi hotspot, or have given my password to anyone, or left my PC unattended. Please help.
06-Oct-2011
i have been getting e-mails sent from my account selling viagra under the title “no subject”
please can you advise what to do
09-Oct-2011
I believe my account was just compromised. Is it possible for someone to send you an infected email, and than once you log into your account that email sends more emails to everyone in your contacts simultaneously? I’ve already changed my password and i am in the middle of a virus scan. Is it already too late for my contacts? is there any way i could have prevented this? The email that was sent to me was not opened or linked to.
19-Oct-2011
I am one of those whose email account has been compromised- many of my contacts have received emails about viagra and nonsense emails – I have a free account with aol – according you, nothing can be done – is this a fact?
@glad
You certainly can, and should, make every attempt to gain control of your email account again through AOL. It’ll probably take some work! If you do recover the account read everything you can about protecting it… and do share your horror story with friends to save them the same grief.
So to be clear – the horrendous problem is that once my email account is compromised and they have my contact list – its game over. They can just send emails to my contacts and craft their emails with a ‘from:’ value of my email address. No matter what i do; even if I obliterate my email account, let alone change my password – the horse has already bolted :-(
For God sake help me. I am sending this e-mail 2nd. time (on Saturday, October 15, 2011 4:46 PM). I am approx. 15 years old user of hotmail account. My account has been hacked, resultantly i can’t sign-in due to inncorrect password.
I am sending my e-mail (as previous / first e-mail to hotmail)
Dear Sir/ Madam,
My hot mail id has been hacked 2-3 days before, password has been changed {email removed}. Kindly help me on urgent basis, as I am user more than 15 years. The hacker (culprit of money fraud) has mailed me (in other hotmail account even yahoo account and definitely all id’s in my account). You can contact on my yahoo account ({email removed}). After hacking, I received the following e-mail for your immediate action.
{rest of post removed}
@Alamgir
You need to learn about internet safety. It looks like you posted your emails and other sensitive information in a public forum. You are lucky that it has been removed from your post. You also don’t seem to understand that Ask Leo! is not Hotmail.
Here are some good sources on this site to learn more about internet safety:
How do I keep my computer safe on the internet?
hey jim. same thing with me. after i deleted my account my mom said she still got weird emails from me. is there absolutely nothing we can do now?
I am having this issue with emails being sent from an email address that “Looks” like it is from me but is an account that was closed over 10 years ago and AOL confirms that It was closed? The first part does look like the current email I use but the @ is aol.com which I do NOT use?? Does this mean they somehow gained this information from a friends OLD list? or ? Frustrated!
02-Dec-2011
My hotmail account was blocked by them because someone has been sending a lot of junk messages from it. Hotmail needs my mobile phone number, which I have sent many times today, but becasue I am not in the US, I have not received a code. What can I do???
06-Dec-2011
Leo, I read your comments about address book hacking and your text is like many of the other sites I’ve gone to. Long on talk, but short on solutions!! It appears that there are no real ‘experts’ on this subject, just a great deal of ‘talk’. I use Thunderbird that accepts email from AT&T/Yahoo. Rouge emails are sent from Russia, Israel, Czech Republic and Turkey. I finally opened the link. It’s to a Canadian pharmacy: Canadian Health & Care. I would like to see something more in-depth then what I read on your site.
i have noticed that e-mails have gone to my contacts because i get mailer -default messeage back i have not sent them and no sign of me sending any
Leo, I only read the first 5 comments on the web page before typing this comment in, but I hope this can help some of Your Readers.
I use Thunderbird to get (and send) my AT&T/Yahoo! email using POP3 and SMTP.
But I also use Mailwasher Free first to see what is being sent to my web mail In-Box before I will let Thunderbird get it on my computer.
Mailwasher Free will highlight email from anyone as ‘SPAM’ in RED, if it hasn’t been told that the address is a ‘Friend’ (GREEN).
Putting the mouse pointer on the Senders address lets me see the full email address so I can decide if the message is from someone I know or I don’t know.
If the message is from someone I want to get mail from I can click the SPAM button on the left of the line to change it to ‘Friend’.
Mailwasher Free has a function/option that IT can Remember the address is SPAM if it sees it again, but I don’t use that option.
I will Log On to my web mail account and check the box on that messages line and then click the Spam button so AT&T/Yahoo! can know I consider it to be a Spam message, hoping that They (AT&T/Yahoo!) will send any more messages from That Address into Their Spam folder instead of to my In-box.
Since I use Thunderbirds Address Book for my Contact List, all the Contacts I put in my AT&T/Yahoo! online Address Book are addresses like:
abuse@att.net
abuse@yahoo.com
abuse@yahoo.cn
Addresses that I know a Spammer would Love to send mail to. ;-)
Also in Mailwasher Free, by clicking on the RED lined message the first 20 lines of the message can be read.
I hope this was helpful to someone.
Everything I read sounds like my situation EXCEPT that this behavior continued even after I deleted all the contacts from my account (after exporting them). It appears to be picking up e-mail addresses from my sent box or inbox. I have changed my password again and also changed security answers as suggested – we’ll see what happens.
31-Jan-2012
Hi my e-mail been stop! how do get it back on?
can some one please help me?.
thank’s
Aleslie springer
@Aleslie
We cannot recover hacked accounts, lost or forgotten passwords. Please see this article for more information on your options:
Would you please recover my password? My account has been hacked or I’ve forgotten it.
If you have a Hotmail account this article may be of some help:
What are my Lost Hotmail Account and Password Recovery Options?
Hi Leo – one of the many tools spammers and hackers use are the emotional mails that say someones kid is missing, get money in 3 days, good luck mails etc which all have one common thread, yeah thats right, ” send this to 6 people in 10 minutes and see what happens”. Once you forward, a little program written into the mail steals your buddies addresses and spams them!! – so you are basically handing over your address book! – dont forward these mails and tell your mates not to send them to you. Since I did this I get so few mails I’m lonely, but I do not get viruses, worms etc and my friends don’t get mail not sent by me!!
@Ricky
Forwarding an email doesn’t run a program to steal your address book, but it’s still a bad idea to forward these emails as it is a waste of time and only bothers your friends and contacts.
Why shouldn’t I forward this email asking me to “forward to everyone I know”?
Hi Leo,
I m getting this issue in my gmail and hotmail accounts – Someone sent me an email with subject as “Re:8” i didn’t open it. But after some time in my sent box this same mail was sent to many emails (which r not saved in contacts but recently used). Now this is happening on daily basis, automatically even without logging in. the content of this email is nothing but a 1 liner ad and a link.
Pls suggest to stop this…
@Deepak
That’s very odd to be happening in hotmail and gmail which are online services, or are you downloading them with a POP3 service? All the same it would be good to do a serious virus check on your computer. This article will help:
How do I recover from a bad virus infection?
e-mails have been sent from my account to people in my contact list. My e-mail account is through my cable isp and my contact list is in my Windows Mail program, not online. The sent e-mail does not show up in my sent files in Windows Mail. Since my contact list is only in Windows Mail, does this mean someone has accessed my computer (perhaps a firewall issue) rather than simply accessessing my e-mail account?
10-Mar-2012
Hi Leo,
A friend recently had money begging emails sent to her contacts, but ONLY the ones in a group that she always sends on the “send it all your friends” garbage. I think that one of those junk mails had a worm or whatever in it to pass that list to them (about 15 people).
Hi! my website is hacked and is giving message “Ask Leo” . just want to know if you are involved in this hacking?
thanx
05-Apr-2012
This morning I checked my inbox on hotmail and I had lots of messages stating ‘delivery status failure’ from postmaster@hotmail.com and ‘mailer-daemon@yahoo.co.uk. Obviously I didn’t send any of these and I checked my sent folder which is empty.
I’m doing a full scan on my pc using Kaspersky PURE right now to check for trojan/malware.
I’ve deleted all my contacts in my contact list. I remembered I saved myself in my contact list so I received one of these ’emails’ and I clicked on the header and it shows an I.P address would that I.P be the culprit?
Do you think my pc has malware or is my email hacked or is a case of email spoofing.
I’ve got 3 hours till my full scan of my pc is finished.
Thanks for reading this.
@Dani,
Unless you are downloading your Hotmail email to your computer, with a program such as Outlook, scanning your computer won’t help. Hotmail is an online service and the compromise has, likely, happened online.
You need to change your password and all recovery information right away in your account, though it is possible that your email address has just been spoofed.
This recent article from one of Leo’s Answercasts explains in more depth, and gives some relevant links at the bottom to help you out.
My friend says I have a virus in my hotmail email, what should I do?
I changed all my password and recovery info but I have ANOTHER hotmail account that has just sent over a hundred emails to strangers telling them that their world of warcraft account has been compromised. Both of my hotmail accounts have now been spoofed/hacked, should I just deactivate these accounts and go with a different email provider.
The difference with this new attack is the emails are actually present in my sent folder does this mean this new attack is a hacker in my account. ugh this is annoying, both hotmail accounts have no connection with each other.
@Dani
If you can get into your compromised account and change password and all of the security information, it should get your account back and lock out the hackers.
Is changing my password enough?
My friend says I have a virus in my Hotmail email, what should I do?
soo annoying the same is happening to my email
my old email [removed]@hotmail.com is being hacked.. how can i get hotmail to delete it.. they changed everything
Someone has used my email address to set up an account on a porn website my profession has been used which is visible on my hotmail details..my husband thinks I’ve done this and I’m trying to prove its not me.an email password reminder was sent to my hotmail address but I did not request this..please help my marriage is at stake and I’m so scared.
17-Oct-2012
Someone has sent a threatening email to one individual on my contacts. It is writen as though I wrote the letter, I did not. There is no way they could know my password. I want to know who this person is, I will prosecute!
I am an 11 year old girl
I dont enter competitions or give my password out
But i think a website used my password for another website and changed it slightly to get this one
There is an option to send it to another enail address
So i sent it to my dad
He noticed he was sent a random email
From fox advertisement
Or something along the lines of that
Im scared!
I dont want to have to get a new email
The problem is:
I have soooo many contacts
I go on email mostly on my iPod
Maybe this darn thing has a virus
Ill have to keep checking this site
To see if u get a reply
Coz i cant access mu emails
In my case I don’t think the spammer is using my account to send the spam. I don’t see any email in my send folder and if I read the headers correctly they are coming from an IP registered in Thailand. Each email goes to 9 of my contacts. Each email has a different link. The text of the email has hidden character strings before and after the link. The subject line contains my name. Some of the email don’t have a link, just some of the HTML – looks like the email was malformed and missing the link. Any thoughts on what’s happened or advice about what to do?
@Brian
If the spammer isn’t using your account and is spamming your contacts spoofing your email as a return address, there is not much you can do, as the spammers already have your contact list.
Someone has been sending emails under my name, but it’s an email that is NOT even mine! What do I do?
I have the same issue everyone described, my entire address book used to send e-mails in my name. I do not know how it happened. I promptly changed all my passwords, ran a full scan with McAffee, and found nothing. The spamming seemed to all occur the first day, so eventually I went back to business as usual. But a couple of weeks later I made an online hotel reservation with my credit card. And on this month’s bill, there were a couple of fake credit card charges. I canceled the card, but now I am freaked out. I am a very infrequent credit card user (sometimes no charges for a month or two), and to have my card compromised after using it the following week on the same computer seems like way too much of a coincidence. I downloaded Malaware bytes and ran it, which came up clean. I activated Windows Defender and ran it, also clean. So counting McCaffee, three anti malware programs have passed on the machine. Not good.
It is a dual boot Windows 7/Ubuntu machine. I assume it is the Windows side that is trouble, and have only been using Ubuntu for the moment. And I have temporarily stopped using my online banking and brokerage (after changing the passwords using my office PC). I am just about ready to reformat the thing and start over, a huge amount of work. Any suggestions? I know that theoretically my e-mail account and my credit card could have been stolen by different methods, but it is unlikley and I am not comfortable.
Thanks for any comments
Dave – check out this article: http://askleo.com/email_hacked_7_things_you_need_to_do_now/
People from my contacts have been receiving emails from what appears to be me. My account activity doesn’t have any suspicious logins and there are not any of the emails in my sent folder. I’ve also received some failure to deliver emails. I’ve changed my password a couple of times created secondary verifications. Has my account been hacked or spoofed?
Hey Steve. Read the article. Only you can tell (or really guess) if it’s a hack or just spoofing. One way or the other, read this article and follow all the steps: http://askleo.com/email_hacked_7_things_you_need_to_do_now/
My AOL account was hijacked. I did the recommended changing of passwords, but the malware spam kept going out over my AOL address. So, I totally deleted AOL from all my computers. Family members and friends tell me they still are getting malware spam from me. How can I stop this?
You can’t. The spammers are faking the from address on their spam to make it look like it’s coming from you. There’s nothing you can do about that.
Yesterday I was foolish enough to open a message as if from one of my contacts thru a famous social network (“You have a message from…”) – now all MY contacts received the same message :(. Should I send an e-mail with apologies? Is it acceptable? I don’t want people to think that I may have done that thing!
Sending apologies might prevent someone from clicking on one of those rogue messages, so I’d send out an email to my contacts apologizing and warning them.
Personally I don’t think it’s necessary. It happens often enough that people more-or-less understand. But there’s also no harm in apologizing. In the mean time, make sure your account is secure.
I was having spam e-mail sent to my contacts on gmail. I went through the two-step security, deleted all of my information, and changed my password to a 17-character one that included uppercase letters, lowercase letters, symbols, and numbers, and the only place it is stored is on a piece of paper in my house. Yet within two months, my contacts are telling me that they are getting spam e-mails from me. If I can’t log into my gmail without my password and a unique, time-sensitive code, how are the thieves doing it??
They probably just grabbed a copy of your address book way-back-when, or use some other technique to determine who your contacts are, and are now spamming them from other email accounts. They could easily fake the “From:” address to look like it came from you, without needing access to your account at all.
I mistakenly sent about 23 of my contacts on a CC instead of a BCC and now this guy is sending emails to these 23 contacts of mine putting me down and sending them his stuff. What can I do about it?
Nothing that I’m aware of. He has their email addresses. Unless it falls into slander/libel (you’ll need to contact an attorney) I know of no options.
Is there a way to trace the owner of a particular gmail e-mail address? I received an email with a piece of personal information in it. I suspect it is from someone who does not like me but I want to verify. I’ve tried tracing the ip address of the original sender in the header of the email but it only leads back to a Google address in California. Do you have any suggestions?
Nope. If there are legal issues involved you can involve the authorities, but this is not something that is made available to the public.
I know this is an old thread, but I have just had an email that looks like it has been sent by me – to me! This is how it happened:
– I sent an email to the user a month ago
– in Outlook 2010 he found my message in his inbox, opened it, went to file, “resend/ recall”
– it gave a warning saying you are not the original sender etc etc are you sure? – he clicked ok
– then he appeared to be able to send an email back to me and to others that looks like it is from my email address?
– I am using a google apps email with my own domain
I don’t use Outlook, I just use the web gmail interface for the google apps domain my email runs on, but this seems absolutely crazy, as from the way he has done it, it would seem anyone who I have sent a message can do this and send people messages that appear to have come from me – what am I missing here, or how did this happen, as something is clearly not right, and in this case there is no account breach, etc it is as simple as described above
Many thanks
I know what you mean. Spammers send me email all the time that looks like it is from me. Really creates a problem since I don’t want to blacklist myself!
Hi Leo. I have read the article above and I’m confused about what category I fit in. People in my address book are getting emails from me that are spam. The from line is my name AND my email address BUT those spam filled (typically one link) emails are not appearing as SENT in my sent folder. Does this mean my account was fully and completely hacked and I need to follow “Is Changing My Password Enough?” or is this a case of “there’s nothing you can do about it.” If these hackers ARE using my actual gmail account, why wouldn’t the emails show up in sent? I only get the “Mail Delivery System” “Mail Delivery Failed” Etc. . . .
As follow up, in one of the emails that was returned to me, it looks like people are receiving these emails from me from a server in Germany. I have the IP address and looked it up. Still don’t know what this means I should do, however. . . .
Additionally, when I look at my account, it shows no access to my account by anyone but me and my city and all the retrieval info is still mine, none of that has changed.
Most likely they are sending this mail from another account, but there’s also a possibility that the are accessing your account and deleting the sent mail. As long as you can get into your account the “Is Changing My Password Enough?” should at least to prevent any further damage the hacker can do. It’s possible, and even likely that the hackers still have your email address and contacts list and can make it appear that the spam is coming from your account. So, although your account may be secure, it might be too late to stop the spam. Even closing your account wouldn’t stop this from happening.
It does not mean your account was hacked. It COULD have been so taking steps to secure your account makes sense, but it’s not a certainty that you were hacked. Spammers can make completely fake from addresses – both name and email address.
My ex knew my facebook password he signed in my account and sent messages looking like they were from me to him and used them in custody court. We are still in court. He also was at the end of my driveway using my wifi. I went to at&t about this, but what all can he access on wifi? Is there anyway to prove it? How can I protect myself? I believe he also entered my cloud and messages
You need to be protecting yourself by changing some passwords immediately, and also make sure your router is protected. Here are several articles that will help:
http://askleo.com/how_do_i_secure_my_router/
http://askleo.com/is_changing_my_password_enough/
sir
i have one problem with my outlook if some one send mail to me in my mail inbox showing my name not showing who send mail how to i fix my problem?
thanks.
I don’t understand the problem.
Hi sir,
i have my company account by website. i am using it on outlook and my tab and mobile. when i send a mail by my laptop to my tab and moblie. the recived mail on my tab and mobile message is ok but the attachment is not showing. Attachment format is automatically changed. this the showing fromat (winmail.dat)
So please help me what i do?????????????????????????????????
Hi, I’ve had some strange things happen within my facebook and Hotmail account. Long story short, I have been receiving emails that look like they have come from my partner (correct email address and user name) and when I hit reply it will reply to his email address…..however he hasn’t sent them and they aren’t in his sent items. They are basic “apparent” conversations between him and one of his facebook friends – using her full name and email address. The emails go to my junk box which is unusual because emails from him in the past have gone straight into my inbox as he is a safe contact.
My partner has also received an email that apparently came from me but I didn’t send it. He has also received emails from one of my facebook friends.
All the emails are implying that he is cheating with the girl in the email or that I am cheating with my friend from facebook – this is most certainly not the case (even if either of us were cheating why would we send emails like that to each other clearly showing cheating convos?).
Not sure if someone has it in for me etc or if hacks can get real personal??
Anyone have any advice or had something similar happen??
This article reminded me of an incident from the early days, at least 20 years ago. I received an angry call from a customer complaining about an email that came from me. Not only did it not come from me; but, I didn’t have my customers email address. In fact I didn’t even know that he had an email address. We never did figure out how it was done.
If your customer had your email address, the hacker might have got it through your customer.
Hi,
I’ve been receiving phone calls from friends in my email address book saying that they have been receiving emails from an account that is similar. for example;
real email: {removed}@yahoo.com
the email address they are receiving emails from: {removed}@aaronknight.net (the @arronknight.net) is the address my friends have been receiving emails from. Has anyone heard of this email address? The link they are sending is a spam link to gain access to their financial details. How do I stop this?
You probably cannot. This sounds like typical spam.
I have read the article, and it has indicated that if the hacker is sending emails from my contact list and using my exact email, then my account has been compromised.
However, the hacker sent an email to everyone in my contacts list but not using my email. It was a spoofed email. I deleted all of my contacts and it happened again; to all my contacts, different email address. What can I do about this?
Once a hacker has the list of contacts, it’s too late to do anything about it.
Do you know how this scenario is possible: emails were sent and then additionally forwarded from my email account, AND my IP address, to various people, full of very derogatory information about my boss and job. Boss was ALSO included in the forward. Some of the content was from a letter I had composed in Word on my laptop. It seems to me that someone has accessed my computer by remote and done so with this specific intent. I was told by my boss’s boss that this is just not possible and fired. I see spammers can do all kinds of things, but this is so specific and personal, it’s not typical spam … I just don’t know what to make of it or how to defend myself against it. It wasn’t anything ever meant to be shared, so I am mortified.
a post was printed on street life about a very good friend, it stated it was from myself it was not. the contents horrid and nasty, somehow my street life account had been changed, how did this happen . it has ruined our friendship she does not believe me , I have cancelled the account I am shattered about this
Without actual details no one will be able to help you with this question. Like, where was it posted, from what account? Is “Street Life” the site? Have you checked to see if the account was hacked. Have you checked the post to see if it was another account spoofing yours?
Noted the comments, yes from Street life. it was from my wanadoo account, the amazing thing even my street life name was changed , making any previous posts already on there showing the new name, The association it mentioned, the lady from there is very angry with me, although I told her nothing to do with me, my good friend of over twenty years plus, will not speak, and that really hurts, I would put the contents of this post, on here but this would cause further trouble, it was really a horrid post and how someone could do this is beyond me. it was taken of , Monday they sent me an email informing of this, I have replied . waiting for response/One further point both my friend /myself have wanadoo accounts mine is {removed}.do you think someone has done this to cause trouble . I need to sort this out the stress is making me ill. I wait your reply
Email is being sent by me to sister in-law, funny thing is I don’t have her in my contacts. Never had her email. How does this happen. Is it me or her that is hacked.
There is the possibility that your email is hacked. In that case change your password right away. It’s more likely that someone is just spoofing your email address as outlined in this article. I recommend you read this article, and also the related articles.
Probably neither of you. Spammers make associations that don’t require hacking.
I have had this problem for years and they have all been spam e-mails and mostly of the same ilk for a while it irked me enough to ask a Former Computer wizz to look and sort it out for me looking through my computer up until recently I didn’t know what he did and for a long period of time I never had any more problems then I bought a new computer and set up various accounts and after some 6 months I started getting the same thing happening again so I asked him what he actually did, he had changed my user account password you must have set up another user account with the same password that you had before I looked at it the last time as all I did was change the user name password and that was that I changed the password he also said that if I had any concerns to buy “Byte Fence” software and that will remove any misdemeanours you may have creeping around your computer and thus far I have had only had two as well as changing my password and have had no further problems.
My contacts are recieving emails as if I am the sender but not…..your help to stop this please
There is nothing we can do on this end. Read and follow the advice in this article you are commenting on.
I haven’t actually seen anything on here that tells me how a friend phones me up to say he is sending an email, if I press reply to the genuine email address, the reply address changes from a BT email address to a hotmail address with an extra l in his name.
It isn’t his email address at all, and it can only be changed when spotted by the reply-er. How can that happen?
Usually that’s a misconfiguration on the sender’s part. The “reply to” address is something that they specify.
OK thank you I will email him and try to put it right.
Hi
A person has accessed my contact list when I didn’t close down my email down correctly.
They must have sent my contact list to their computer or somehow recorded the email addresses.
He sends malicious emails about me to these contacts from his computer.
I know this person’s email address but he wont stop sending the most offensive lies about me, due to some mental health issues.
Some of the email contacts are professional email contacts and it is very embarrassing and detrimental to my work.
Is there some way to stop this person sending these vile messages to my contacts ?
Does Google have any way of blocking this person’s email if I provide evidence of this abuse ?
Many thanks
M.H.
The only thing I can think of would be to contact the police, but unless there is a threat of violence, I’m not sure the would have the resources to prioritize it. Once someone has you contact list, there is nothing Google can do, even if they were willing to help.
I received an email from a friend asking me to transfer money. Once I emailed her back, I soon realized that it was not her and only the Name on the email was hers. The email was different. I stopped replying. Does the hacker now have access to my account and contacts since I responded to the email? Thank you!
Nope. Not from a simple response.
I have received all kinds of malware over the years and was able to eliminate
it simply restoring my computer to an earlier date. I was even able to cancel
ransomeware by working around and finally getting into my control panel
to restore my computer. Has worked every time for me.
Smart!
Great. I’ve had the same experience. One thing I learned from Leo was the importance of keeping up to date backups.
Dear Sir and Madam,
I have the same problem as the asker and my husband been paid the scammer,he thought it was me, and now my name and my children probably in the black list for the thing that I never done. Is there any help when I as victim or a midman tell Microsoft at they representative official office?. Each time I fix my phone and computer it’ll end up the same, I’ve ask all my contacts to erased my name and contact as I did the same but it seem didn’t worked. I’ve isolated my self from some long enough but it seem didn’t work. I’ve done what the IT security geek tell me and I even go to my carriers and now I got help from authority (I hoped) to trace the scumbags,what I would like to know is,,is there away to clear up my name other than waiting till there another victim’s (how I wishes no more)
i get emails from my cousins email address but with one letter changed, for instance {removed}@gmail.com when it should be {removed}@gmail.com. Tries to trick me into clicking a link which I do not do. Has he been hacked or have I ??
Nope. This is not an indication of a hack.
When I initially commented I appear to have clicked
on the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each time
a comment is added I get four emails with the exact same comment.
Is there an easy method you are able to remove me from that service?
Appreciate it!
I don’t have a “notify” option here any more, so there’s nothing to remove you from. Please contact http://askleo.com/ask and include a copy/paste of the notification message so we can sort this out.
Hi,
This has been happening from my work email (email “from me” and “to some of my contacts”) Yes, I’ve changed the password, but the difference from the situation in your article is that my email is not a “free online account”. I don’t know where the spammers would have connected my contact list and my work email. My work email has online website access, but not a stored contact list.
Thanks
my husband has been getting letter “Note to Self” from someone claiming to have gotten his information off a porn site….
is asking for 1000 in bitmoney or his habits will be leaked to his contacts….
Is my husband on porn and now hacked? This hackers says he has a split screen of him and could see him enjoying sites, is this just a scare tatic?
Or is this something said to scare him not wanting contacts being told he was on porn sites?
It’s all very likely a scam. I generally ignore these.
Hi Leo
I have changed my AOL PW and tightened security settings
I am convinced my email is being spoofed with emails being sent to someone impersonating me, causing severe stress. It’s really malicious
Without the cooperation of the receipient, how I can track info to identify the sender impersonating me?
Thanks and god bless!
CM
Unfortunately, that can’t be done. Spoofing an email address isn’t much different than spoofing the return address on snail mail. Even with the help of the recipient, it’s unlikely you’d be able to track down the real sender without law enforcement intervention.
I started receiving “replies” from Senators thanking me for my emails. I never sent these emails. I changed my Yahoo password but it happened again today. Thank you