Email sending out viagra links to contacts...help please?

clairibel

Hi there,

I have just been informed by one of my email contacts that i have sent her two links for viagra...of which i haven't.

I think my yahoo account has been compromised but what do i do about it please.

I have run avg which i do everyday as scheduled and nothing came back and now running adaware and so far nothing.

Not sure where to go from here

Thanks for any help to sort this for me x

John_Gray

Change your email address. Now your address is captured on a spam list it will only get worse.

If you still like Yahoo, get another one there. Googlemail does a better job of spam filtering. But since it isn't you sending the emails it will depend on the receiver's ISP's spam filters.

googler

Change your password?

Same thing happened with Hotmail accounts, mine and someone else I know; not Viagra, but spam links nonetheless......

I changed my password and it stopped. I only have a couple of 'contacts' recorded in Hotmail, and one of them is one of my 'other' e-mail addresses, so that limited the embarassment.

You could try deleting all your contacts. Then the spammers wouldn't have anywhere to send them. Keep the e-mail addresses in a text document separate from the Yahoo account, maybe?

clairibel

Thanks i'll get it changed now :T

Oscar_The_Grouch

The other thing to do is set up a contact called "AAAA" or "ZZZZ" that is your own e-mail address. The spam is usually sent to everyone in your address book, so if you receive an e-mail from yourself in the future saying "Dear ZZZZ", you know it's time to change your password again!!

John_Gray

googler wrote: »

Change your password?

Not really of any value since the spammers have the email address (and probably now those of 'all her friends'), and can spoof the email addresses from which they send spam and send it to and from all those addresses.

Anyway, Viagra spam is so last decade...

clairibel

LOL sorry to be out of fashion.

I have just completely shut down my account and opened a new gmail one...will that solve the issue completely?

How do you get them in the first place...some link i've clicked unawares is it?

John_Gray

If your email address 'gets known', perhaps because it can easily be harvested from a website, or because someone hacks Hotmail (as happened a few months ago), or it can be guessed (like clairibel@yahoo.co.uk, john@yahoo.co.uk, etc), then it can be used as a target for spam, or by spammers as a spoofed email address from which spam can be sent. Many other ways, too.

Googlemail is better on spam filtering, so you're less likely to have spam appear in your InBox, but see my first sentence!

It took about 3 years for me before I got spam appearing on an email address, but I was quite careful to whom I gave it out...

Inactive

It may be " hard " to stop Viagra spam..

clairibel

Very funny :rotfl:Inactive!

But at the end of the day is this very harmful or just spamful?

Can they get sensitive info or just bug the hell out of me with spam and are my contacts doomed as well....so what your saying is because i still have the same contacts i will still be blighted by spam.

I can cope with it as long as its not harmful???

jeblues

Hi I have had the same problem with my hotmail account and when i checked the email address it was totally different from mine but still showed my account name, I have no contacts stored at all, the emails were all sent to me from me and have now stopped.