Emails sent from my account without me doing anything

[Volthawk]

Well, my email account is acting kinda screwy. At around this time yesterday, it sent this message to everyone on my contact list:


How are you?
Christmas is coming, bought presents? If not a gift, Seize the time.
I bought some things here, really great, you go and see, there you need.
Cnshopon.com Company
Most sincere greetings

It also has an attachment, which I'm not touching with a barge pole.

Some (I guess because they're the automated online ones) failed to send. Now, it seems to be happening again (I got an email from hotmail telling me that that message was delayed when sent to one of the aforementioned automated accounts). Any idea why this is happening and how to stop it?

[Eldan]

Sounds like a virus/worm/trojan, whatever the right word in this case is. They do stuff like that. Basically: update your protection software and do a thorough scan.

[Lioness]

I had one of these for a while.

I deleted it, I did virus scans, etc.
But it still kept sending.

What it'd done was put a link in my signature line...once I removed that I no longer had a problem.

I don't know how it works, but removing the link seemed to work.

[olelia]

Before you run the scan, and probably as soon as you can, disconnect your internet to stop the hemorrhaging.

[Volthawk]

From the looks of things, it hasn't sent any more out. Weird.


I had one of these for a while.

I deleted it, I did virus scans, etc.
But it still kept sending.

What it'd done was put a link in my signature line...once I removed that I no longer had a problem.

I don't know how it works, but removing the link seemed to work.

Nothing there.


Before you run the scan, and probably as soon as you can, disconnect your internet to stop the hemorrhaging.

Sorry (it's half one in the morning), but 'stop the hemorrhaging"? And...it's kinda scanning already.

[Jimorian]

He means that just because you only caught it sending e-mail, doesn't mean it isn't doing other bad things to your computer. One example is that it may have opened a back door to your system where they could change this trojan or add others that could keylog your passwords and credit card info, be used in a DDOS attack, just about anything.

Until you complete a scan and make sure your virus programs and firewall are working properly, ASSUME you aren't in complete control of your own computer.

[Starbuck_II]

I've had same problem is only attacks my hotmail email.
Every other one is safe. Scans all say my computer is safe.

Everything works fine but not my hotmail because it keeps sending out spam (advertising for stuff). I only know because of it failling to send.

I'm thinking the only cure is copying contact info somewhere then deleting contact list. So it has no one it can send to.

[Lolzords]

Ooh, I had one of those. Just changed my password and it stopped doing it.

[Surfing HalfOrc]

What anti-virus are you using? Download and run Malwarebytes and let it do its thing.

What email program are you using? My AOL account had a change to my auto-settings, it auto-replied to any email that I received. I reset the setting, changed my password, no problems afterward.

[Serpentine]

I've had the same problem (sorry to anyone who got it). I've used my virus scan on my computer, and it didn't find anything, but would that work on something in the email itself? What if it got in when I was checking my email on a different computer?
I changed my password, but there might have been another one since then. Not sure.

[factotum]

Is this a Hotmail account? If so, somebody could have just hacked that rather than your own computer--my sister had the same issue a few months ago. If this is the case, change your Hotmail account password ASAP, preferably to something a bit more secure than you used before!

[Volthawk]

OK, password changed. Yeah, it's Hotmail, and I'm using Avast.

Also, fun fact. My auntie thought it was a proper email sent by me.

[Serpentine]

Oh dear... Better tell her to give her computer a good going-over.

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

It's probably someone from South America or Asia somewhere hacking into your email and sending people in your address book spam. I myself and many I know have had this happen to them. Just change your password, and you should be just fine.

[Volthawk]

It's probably someone from South America or Asia somewhere hacking into your email and sending people in your address book spam. I myself and many I know have had this happen to them. Just change your password, and you should be just fine.

Done that already. Nothing new happened.

[Jimp]

This happened to my brother's gmail account. For him we found that whoever/whatever virus had hacked his account basically used his email to flood other addresses with a virus email. We found in the account settings in either 'Accounts and Imports' or 'POP3 and Forwarding' that another address was using his account for the sending. Basically have a hunt around any access, proxy, other addresses, linked addresses, etc. settings and you may find something odd or an extra permission somewhere. Remove that and change your passwords and such and it should be back to normal :smallsmile:.