Advice needed - email account has been hacked

appleblossom

Can anyone advise me on what I need to do please, basically, I received an email yesterday from the mod of a freecycle group saying my email had been hacked into and an email advertising cheap international calls has been circluated to freecycle members. The mod recognised my name and realised I would not have done this myself so suggested I cancel my subscription and re-set it up with another email address which I did. I then had an an email from what I presume to be another mod from another site saying in capital letters 'you're banned!! removed from the group spammer' - I replied to this mail asking what group they were from and explaining I did not initiate the email but they have not replied.

What do I need to do regarding my mail address being hacked and how do I prevent it in the future? I have anti-virus which is up to date, and I am very careful about clicking on emails so I really don't know what I need to do.

Any advice greatfully received.

Thank you.

Conor_3

I'm sorry but just because it says it's from you doesn't mean it has been sent from your account and if the moderators had half a clue, they'd know this.

You can set your e-mail client to show any "sending from" e-mail address you want.

It's EXTREMELY COMMON for a spammer to use an e-mail address from some poor sod in the "from" field - usually gleaned from forum posts/usenet etc. As ISPs usually block e-mail being sent to multiple recipients, there's no point spamming from someones' actual e-mail server so most spammers run their own e-mail servers.

For now, just change the password on it if in doubt.

zee_2

use firefox and download free googlemail email, shows every sender,easy format to use....zee

Blacksheep1979

zee wrote: »

use firefox and download free googlemail email, shows every sender,easy format to use....zee

erm not really what the OP was asking - they didn't want to see who their emails were from and you can spoof a googlemail, gmail, hotmail or a downing street email address just as easily as any other.

albertross_2

You might want to make sure your friends have good av and antispyware as well, it could be coming from them.

buglawton

Use a private email address to register for groups and then show a different one anywhere publicly. Yahoo allows you to create multiple incoming email addresses that are all read in the same inbox.

appleblossom

Thanks for all your advice and tips. x