Bogus emails sent from my email address

andygb

A few weeks ago, something happened which I would have been totally unaware of, but for the quick response from one of my friends.
He had received an email from me with an attachment (youtube video), and the email had also been sent to around a dozen other recipients.
I looked at my emails, and the "sent" box had been cleared, but there were four other emails in the "spam" section which had been returned. Each of those emails had been sent to around a dozen people, most of whom I know, but luckily they had not received them.
I have been reading up on this, but cannot get my head around how it has happened. Has someone on my contact list been got at, or have I been got at?
Do I have to get rid of the email address which has been infected and start again (I have two other email addresses which are OK), or is there a way of stopping this happening again>
With all the spam phone calls from Indian "Microsoft/Windows techinicians", I am starting to get "hacked off" (forgive the pun), with people who set out to cause computer mayhem.

robmar0se

start here https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/133269

You obviously are infected with a virus, so you need to clean up anything that has got in there, the above post will help you.

What antivirus are you using?

macman

Have you changed your email password for something stronger? If the spam is not in the Sent folder then it's just address spoofing, which you can't do anything about.

debitcardmayhem

robmar0se wrote: »

start here https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/133269

You obviously are infected with a virus, so you need to clean up anything that has got in there, the above post will help you.

What antivirus are you using?

Not necessarily, Andy is it a webmail address ? or is it one on your PC. It could be
1) Someone has guessed/seen your webmail password
2) They are just spoofing your address as the from but since it appears to aim at your contacts then 1 or 3 is likely
3) Yes you may have malware on your PC

First port of call would be to download and run Hijackthis and run it (press shift and right click on the icon/file and select run as administrator)then download Malwarebytes and select the update tab, update and do a scan ,

http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/
http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html?part=dl-10804572&subj=dl&!!!!!button

GunJack

however, a lot of webmail keeps contacts on THEIR servers rather than your pc, so more likely either spoofing e-mail address or details harvested from the webmail servers

texranger

GunJack wrote: »

however, a lot of webmail keeps contacts on THEIR servers rather than your pc, so more likely either spoofing e-mail address or details harvested from the webmail servers

the amount of email ive had from myself selling myself certain male hormone drugs etc. ive lost count and in the email headers they are either a yahoo email address or a .ru address but the ips are from russian or china.
i used to report these to the DC, but they do nothing so i just delete them now

RussJK

texranger wrote: »

the amount of email ive had from myself selling myself certain male hormone drugs etc.

Trust must be really low on the internet if you won't even buy such legitimate products from yourself.

It's like opening the door to a traveling salesman and it turns out to be you - complete with a fake, plastic smiled permanently plastered to your face. You're not having any of this. When you turn to ask your wife to fetch your gun, you realise that YOUR WIFE IS YOU BUT WEARING A DRESS. In dizzy horror you now see that all the photos on the wall of your family and friends ALL HAVE YOUR FACE. F*** what a nightmare.

You turn the gun on yourself.

texranger

RussJK wrote: »

You turn the gun on yourself.

but this will make a mess on the newly decorated hall walls

andygb

A quick update.
They did it again testerday. Just found a few returned emails, and half a dozen sent items (again, each containg up to a dozen recipients). I am running Norton Internet Security/Utilities, and do a Malwarebytes scan each morning. Neither of the other two email accounts have been affected, but this one has all my friends contact details, plus forums, plus ebay. I had this problem months ago and now it has happened twice in 15 days. How do I stop it, because it is annoying and very embarassing.

debitcardmayhem

You still haven't said how you access the said email address ..........

andygb

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

You still haven't said how you access the said email address ..........

Sorry for that, I came out of hospital on Wednesday, and am still trying to organise everything, so I am forgetting to include all relevant details.
PC is running Windows 7, with Norton Internet Security/Utilities (real time updating), running Malwarebytes every day.
I use Firefox as the web browser, and access the AOL front page/sign on screen from there (I have been with AOL for about 15 years). I have AOL set on my favourites list. All our screen names have different passwords (alpha numeric), and the one which has been singled out for attack has had its password changed twice in the last three months.
If I right click on an email to look at the message source, then there is nothing obviously wrong with the emails - bar the fact that I have not sent them.
Am I correct in thinking that the PC has not been infected, but the screen name/email address has?