does this mean I have a virus?

soolin

I'm completely non techie so can someone please explain in plain terms the 'line' of a virus.

What has happened is that my desktop based email is getting approx 31 emails an hour with the subject heading "Mail System Error - Returned Mail", the body of the email says something along the lines of
"This Message was undeliverable due to the following reason:

Each of the following recipients was rejected by a remote mail server.
The reasons given by the server are included to help you determine why
each recipient was rejected."

Neither the outgoing address or the incoming address is mine, they are all different and they are all com.au email accounts.

I can't work out whether this means i have a virus that I can't find or that someone in my address book has one. I've done a full Kaspersky scan, I've done all the usual maintenance in Windows and can find nothing at all.

I'm obviously tired as I can't quite work out what getting these bounced messages means, any advice in the most simple of terms would be appreciated.

The only thing that has been different recently is that instead of the usual 2 or 3 bank phishing mails I used to get a week I now get about 4 - 5 a day, all for different banks and all originating from different places. I hadn't really thought about them as I just delete everything that came in like that.

Nothing else seems to be untoward with my PC, I am wi fi but it is password protected.

soolin

Forgot to mention that the address the mail is returned from is Postmaster-AT-bellnexxia.net if that makes a difference.

macman

All that's happening is that a spambot is automatically generating addresses and using your address (forged) as the sender.
Because 99.9% of the addresses it generates don't exist, these get returned to your address as undeliverable. Usually you get a flurry of these over a few days and then they reduce.
Nothing to indicate that you have a virus, and if you're using Kaspersky you have one of the best AV programs available.

Jaffa.

Do you send many emails? By the looks of it your IP address is being blocked by mail servers.

Or something is sending emails using your email account and the addresses that it's using are old/closed so the mail is being bounced. My Advice would be to change your email address password as it sounds like you've been a victim Phishing (not a virus)

soolin

macman wrote: »

All that's happening is that a spambot is automatically generating addresses and using your address (forged) as the sender.
Because 99.9% of the addresses it generates don't exist, these get returned to your address as undeliverable. Usually you get a flurry of these over a few days and then they reduce.
Nothing to indicate that you have a virus, and if you're using Kaspersky you have one of the best AV programs available.

Thank you, I couldn't work out why I couldn't find anything at all despite running scans for the past 3 + hours. I only just logged in here as I was afraid to go online previously until I had at least done the scans a couple of times to make sure.

soolin

Jaffa. wrote: »

Do you send many emails? By the looks of it your IP address is being blocked by mail servers.

Or something is sending emails using your email account and the addresses that it's using are old/closed so the mail is being bounced. My Advice would be to change your email address password as it sounds like you've been a victim Phishing (not a virus)

I send about 10-20 emails a day and certainly none to Australia for th epast couple of weeks and these are completely random addresses. Thinking about it i believe Macman has probably the right idea.

Money_Grabber13579

Change the password of your e-mail account in case someone has hacked into it and are sending e-mails that way. Do the e-mails appear in your sent box?

soolin

Money_Grabber13579 wrote: »

Change the password of your e-mail account in case someone has hacked into it and are sending e-mails that way. Do the e-mails appear in your sent box?

They don't show in my sent box at all, all I get is the bounce notification.

Nothing else appears to be wrong with either my email or my internet settings.

GunJack

if you haven't already, run MAlwareBytes and SuperAntiSpyware (full scans of both), in case you've got a worm-type infection.....

soolin

I shall do that first thing in the morning. I have blocked the postmaster email address though in case I wake up to a full inbox in the morning..

Money_Grabber13579

soolin wrote: »

They don't show in my sent box at all, all I get is the bounce notification.

Nothing else appears to be wrong with either my email or my internet settings.

I assume that your e-mail account usually saves sent mail though? (i.e. stuff that you actually send)

If that's the case, it would seem that you are still fairly secure and that someone is sending e-mails, but with your "return address" on them.