How can they hijack my email accounts?

Old_Gold

I have two yahoo email accounts that are being hijacked. I am receiving so called emails from my own address to my own address. I suppose if these are coming to me then my address is probably being used to send to others. I certainly know that I am not selling viagra especially to myself. The worst thing about this is that it might mean that some people might be blocking my email address. If it is a marketing ploy I cannot see how it will work as so far no-one has tried to buy any from me(except from the wife:j)
Seriously though how can anyone hijack your email address? What security do yahoo offer? - obviously not much. I doubt if there is any point in trying to contact Yahoo as most of these organisations are pretty unreachable.
Any suggestions please except for the simple one of changing email address.

Browntoa

it's not a hijack , the from email address is "spoofed" (false) but some of the scripts that send out the spam emails are faulty and set the spoofed from email address the same as the email address it is sent to.The emails are NOT originating from your account (unless you can see them in sent mail)

I get loads of them

Browntoa

if you want to make sure your PC is clean then

Please download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and save it to your desktop.

• Make sure you are connected to the Internet.
• Double-click on mbam-setup.exe to install the application.
• When the installation begins, follow the prompts and do not make any changes to default settings.
• When installation has finished, make sure you leave both of these checked:
  • Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
  • Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
• Then click Finish.
• MBAM will automatically start and you will be asked to update the program before performing a scan. If an update is found, the program will automatically update itself. Press the OK button to close that box and continue. If you encounter any problems while downloading the updates, manually download them from here and just double-click on mbam-rules.exe to install.
• On the Scanner tab:
  • Make sure the "Perform Quick Scan" option is selected.
  • Then click on the Scan button.
• If asked to select the drives to scan, leave all the drives selected and click on the Start Scan button.
• The scan will begin and "Scan in progress" will show at the top. It may take some time to complete so please be patient.
• When the scan is finished, a message box will say "The scan completed successfully. Click 'Show Results' to display all objects found".
• Click OK to close the message box and continue with the removal process.
• Back at the main Scanner screen, click on the Show Results button to see a list of any malware that was found.
• Make sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
• When removal is completed, a log report will open in Notepad.
• The log is automatically saved and can be viewed by clicking the Logs tab in MBAM.
• Copy and paste the contents of that report in your next reply and exit MBAM.

Note: If MBAM encounters a file that is difficult to remove, you may be asked to reboot your computer so it can proceed with the disinfection process. Regardless if prompted to restart the computer or not, please do so immediately. Failure to reboot normally (not into safe mode) will prevent MBAM from removing all the malware. MBAM may make changes to your registry as part of its disinfection routine. If you're using other security programs that detect registry changes, they may alert you after scanning with MBAM. Please permit the program to allow the changes.

I'll move this thread over to the Techie Forum in case this finds an infection and you need more help