email security query

searchlight123

hi
i am running windows 7 home.
email is through sky which is now yahoo.
i access my email mainly on my laptop using windows live mail and also on my ipad and iphone (through apple's standard mail apps).
i have been told by a friend that he has now received 2 spam emails from me which i have definitely not sent so feel i may have been hacked. (not yet been told this by anyone else in my contacts list yet).
should i now be changing my password and if so how do i do this so that i can still access my emails with the above devices the same as i do now (without having to put my password in each time).
many thanks.

johnmc

tonygold wrote:

should i now be changing my password and if so how do i do this so that i can still access my emails with the above devices the same as i do now (without having to put my password in each time).

Yes, change your password straight away.

You will need to change it on all computers that access the accounts. If you are doing it online it should ask if you want to save the password.

Mirno

Spoofing emails is easy - spammers do it all the time.
I've received emails from myself before, and I know how to send emails saying they're from someone else.

They do it because it helps them get around spam filters. If your friend has received an email from you, all it means is that someone who knows both of you may have been compromised - not that you have.

If you really think your email has been hacked change the password, but if your only evidence is a friend has received a message from "you" it probably hasn't.

Mirno

InsideInsurance

When you send an email you simply tell the email server who's sending it. For commercial email servers they lock down the server so you can only say its the person who's account you've logged into but an SMTP server can be downloaded and setup in under and hour and thus you can claim any email comes from anyone.

Now there is a chance that someone has hacked your email account and is using that but if they have then the emails would appear in your sent email folder (unless they've gone to the effort of deleting them).

Much more likely they have compromised either (a) your computer or (b) a website (or potentially c, have bought the data from a company) who you've given details to, harvested the information they want (ie your addressbook) and then are using their own or another insecure SMTP server to send out the email spoofing the fact they are from you (and other people in your addressbook)

Run the usual anti-spyware/malware software on your laptop to clean it and the rest is down to simply being careful of what you give out to different websites.

tronator

Mirno wrote: »

Spoofing emails is easy - spammers do it all the time.
I've received emails from myself before, and I know how to send emails saying they're from someone else.

They do it because it helps them get around spam filters. If your friend has received an email from you, all it means is that someone who knows both of you may have been compromised - not that you have.

If you really think your email has been hacked change the password, but if your only evidence is a friend has received a message from "you" it probably hasn't.

Mirno

That's my standard answer to such a question too. It wouldn't harm to change the password, but in 99...% the account is not hacked and somebody else who as both your email addresses on his/her computer got some malware/virus.

This Q&A should be a sticky here as it's being asked regularly...

spud17

tronator wrote: »

That's my standard answer to such a question too. It wouldn't harm to change the password, but in 99...% the account is not hacked and somebody else who as both your email addresses on his/her computer got some malware/virus.

This Q&A should be a sticky here as it's being asked regularly...

But, in this case Yahoo is involved.

My Freecycle (Yahoo) account was accessed earlier this year from Ukraine.

Only one contact in Yahoo address book which was long dead email account.

Also other instances on here, majority Yahoo related.