My email account has been hacked!

booklover

Hello

I am hoping someone can offer me some advice. I just went to check my emails and was asked to change my password because of suspicious activity,

After doing so I managed to access my email acc and immediately noticed that an hour ago someone had sent various emails from my email address to several people I had emailed a couple of years ago.

These said emails were mainly returned as undeliverable but a couple of them did get sent!

I am now very worried that these people will think that I have sent these bad emails.

and also what will happen to my account now?


What can I do to protect my account from this happening again?

What is the best anti virus to buy?


Many thanks in advance


Very concerned

Fiona

GemBlueTopaz1984

Hi just wondering what account this is happening in as a friend has described something similar happening on her Yahoo account yesterday, emails sent the friends with some returned undelivered that she never sent. I'd be interested to know a solution also.

tronator

booklover wrote: »

Hello

I am hoping someone can offer me some advice. I just went to check my emails and was asked to change my password because of suspicious activity,

After doing so I managed to access my email acc and immediately noticed that an hour ago someone had sent various emails from my email address to several people I had emailed a couple of years ago.

These said emails were mainly returned as undeliverable but a couple of them did get sent!

I am now very worried that these people will think that I have sent these bad emails.

and also what will happen to my account now?


What can I do to protect my account from this happening again?

What is the best anti virus to buy?


Many thanks in advance


Very concerned

Fiona

If these were only a few emails which went through you could email them, explain and apologize.

Then read this thread and follow the advise

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2547527

The_Grandmaster

I assume your computer is infected - first thing to do is to remove these. Then we'll consider antiviruses etcetera. Instructions by alienRIK:

Download MALWAREBYTES (Make sure you click 'DOWNLOAD LATEST VERSION')
http://www.filehippo.com/download_ma..._anti_malware/
Open malwarebytes and goto UPDATE and click 'check for updates'. After its updated goto SCANNER and click PERFORM FULL SCAN then click SCAN
Remove everything thats found (needs to be ticked)
Post the COMPLETE log here AFTER youve deleted everything it finds

reboot

Download HIJACK THIS (Make sure you click 'DOWNLOAD THIS VERSION')
http://www.filehippo.com/download_hijackthis/2894/
Click MAIN MENU then DO A SYSTEM SCAN AND SAVE A LOGFILE(Takes seconds) then post the log so we can see whats running
(do NOT do anything else with Hijack but scan and post the FULL log)

aliEnRIK

Change your password (make it long and random), and change your 'security questions' so that 'no one' would be able to answer them except you

alexanderea

which email provider?

spenderdave

You may well not have sent these mails at all. It is a common ploy of spammers to forge the 'from' address in mails to make it appear it was sent by somebody else. You need to look at the headers of the mails to find what server was used to actually send the mail. Do not assume it was sent by your computer and it does not necessarily mean you are infected.

If however you are using Hotmail there is a well known hack where somebody cracks you Hotmail password then uses your webmail and the address book you have there to send dodgey mails. Again you yourself did not send the mails, but the hacker has managed to break into your Hotmail site by finding your password. To cure this just change the password and make sure you use something with a mixture of letters and numbers so that it cannot be found with a dictionary attack.

tronator

spenderdave wrote: »

You may well not have sent these mails at all.

I read it like he found messages in his Sent folder when he logged in into his webmail account.

booklover

Hi

I was all afternoon and am just back now.

It is a is a google mail account. We have just bought Norton anti virus and will install it shortly.

everything appears ok at the moment.


Many thanks


Fiona

The_Grandmaster

I'd recommend malwarebytes and hijack this scan before installing norton... (see earlier post)

aliEnRIK

I would definitely do as per post #4 before installing norton as you could very well make things worse