Re: [Simply Computers] E-mail compromised

 

Hi Bob,

Did you ever send an email, and CC everyone in your address book?

If you do that, then everyone can see who is in your address book by viewing the email header.

Then, anyone who received that email could change their email program to appear that it is sending from you, and then send an email to everyone in the CC list, and it would appear that someone has hacked your address book.

When you want to send a message and CC everybody, it's better to send it to yourself, and then BCC everyone else, so that others don't see all the folks you are sending to.

rogerX

--- In simplycomputers2@yahoogroups.com, "choppbobby" <choppbobby@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the reply.
> About 6 weeks ago an acquaintance told me that he had received an infected e-mail from me. I was confused because his e-mail address was not in my address book, but it had been in the past.Then, about 10 days ago I got the non deliverable e-mail addresses from everyone in my address book, but I had not sent the emails. I ran AVG scan and AVG's AvgProci plus Malwarebites, but none of them showed anything.
> I changed my OE password as a "whatwhat harm can it do?".
> I don't know what else to do, so I'll just keep my fingers crossed.
> Bob
> >
> > There is a lot of confusion about how e-mail worms work:
> >
> > * Somebody gets a mail worm on his/her computer.
> > * That piece of worm will open Outlook and scan the address book.
> > * The spyware will randomly select addresses to send TO as well as spoof the sender to appear to come from somebody other than the one infected.
> >
> > There are several reason why it does this:
> >
> > 1. It's more difficult to know who is infected, so the infected machine can stay infected longer.
> > 2. It's more likely to spread the worm/payload because some people will receive a message from somebody they trust more (like a computer professional who never gets viruses).
> >
> > But it's most likely that while you may be receiving similarly infected messages seemingly from different people, it's quite likely only one or two of your friends are infected, and it's also quite likely that none of the people you are receiving messages from are the ones that are infected.
> >
> > AOL has more information about this here <http://mailblog.aol.com/2011/05/18/why-am-i-getting-emails-from-myself/>.
> >
> > --David
> >
> >
> >
> > On 06/24/2011 07:57 AM, choppbobby wrote:
> > >
> > > Recently someone has been using my Outlook Express to send out spam to everyone in my Address Book.
> > > Not knowing quite what to do I changed my OE password, and set it so that I have to enter my password every time I open it.
> > > Will this help? I've scanned for a virus and malware, and found nothing. I use Win XP Home.
> > > Bob
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>

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