malicious email?

Cardew

I received an email purporting to be from my brother(who is even less computer literate than myself).

The message read:

XXXXXXXXXXX@ co.uk(his correct email address) has left you 8 voicemail requests

VIEW FULL EMAIL CONTENT (the wording in capitals was a blue clickable link)

Obviously I didn't open the link and deleted the email.

I also sent my brother an email telling him that it was suspicious.

I have just had a telephone call from him. Obviously he knows nothing about the email, but it has been sent to others in his address book - probably everyone! but only a few have told him.

He is also receiving loads of emails from 'Postmaster' informing him of a failed delivery. The intended recipients of those failed emails are unknown to him - not in his address book and he has never heard of them.

Has anyone any ideas of the purpose of the email - does opening the link spell disaster!! - or any ideas to 'clean' his PC?

GolfFoxtrot

If it's from something like hotmail or gmail where there is often no client installed on the PC but accessed via the internet via the browser (internet explorer or suchlike) the first thing to do is change his password as I'd guess it's just his emails that have been hacked. Pick a strong password, he should use uppercase, lowercase, special characters and numbers.

Also for good measure install and run something like avast which will check his PC for viruses.

GolfFoxtrot

Oh and I forgot to add don't open the email or click any links within it.

Richard53

I had my Gmail account hacked last year, despite having a supr-strong password. Lots of Postmaster failed deliveries, and up to 100 mails a day asking about a car or boat I had for sale in Wisconsin, or somewhere.

I changed my password, and haven't heard a peep since. Embarrassing but harmless. And yes, NEVER open a link or attachment in a suspicious email.

Uxb

...and change all your password recovery security questions as well!

sheep-ali

I have been having similar problems since January. Malicious emails being sent supposedly from me. They went to everybody in my address book.
I ran several scans, changed my password and deleted all the names in my address book but the same people are still getting the malicious emails.
The problem coincided with my getting an ipod and it seems to happen everytime I put my ipod on the computer.
I am at my wits end with this.
The latest thing was that I got an email " invoice " supposedly from Apple for 2 books which I have on my ipod. I have never bought anything from the Apple store.