Unsecure chicken perches

[Sheilaz]

So, I'm now getting several emails apparently from people in my email contacts, which turn out to be spam. Of course, I'm not clicking on the links in the email, but I suspect it started when I did click on one a while back, believing it to be a genuine email.

 

Now I'm getting more, and it's frustrating, especially when they are plausible, I nearly clicked one today as I was pleased to hear from the person at first. At this rate, I may miss a real one, as friends often do send links.

Is there anything I can do, or just hope they go away? I'm reluctant to drop the account as I use it a lot.

 

Also, I'm assuming it started with my innocent first click, but is there any implication for the addresses that are being used, is there a problem their end? Should I tell them, or is it just me?

 

Are my other contacts at risk?

 

I know it's very common, but anyone know best course of action, or just ignore and hope it subsides? Genuine help only please , thanks!

[Redwing]

A similar thing happened to a friend and the subject line of each email was empty so they were able to tell us to ignore emails with a blank subject line

 

To be honest if you are getting emails from them then the problem may be theirs and not yours, I don't know if spamming is more sophisticated now but it used to be that they would use your address book to send emails from you to your contacts but I guess these things are more clever now..

 

If I was you I'd email everyone in your contacts and tell them you have been receiving spam emails and when contacting you could they put something in the subject line that you would recognise, you could specify a word or something

[lillybettybabs]

You need to tell them as it sounds like they have had their email address hacked, They should change

their password and the emails should stop. I have had this happen to me.

[Alis girls]

We've just had this - I opened it thinking it was an email from a mum who had videoed my son on his trumpet - BIG mistake. Have these scum bags nowt else to do

[The Dogmother]

As the others have said, the trojan will attach itself to an address book and email rubbish out to all the contacts; opening one of these emails is usually enough to download it onto your machine; a techie friend once likened it to and STD - gets passed around and infects everyone

 

Try to use the preview pane on your email so that you can see what is in the body of the email and not open it if you're suspicious. I'd also run and anti-virus on your pooter and a key logger such as Adaware (which is free) just to be safe.

 

Sheila, I haven't had one from you yet.....

[Angie]

I had something similar but my contacts were being sent emails from me which were spam.

I reported it to my server and had to change my password, also to put a thingy in front of all my email addresses in my contact list....can't remember what its called....One of these ~

A sideways s a tiny one it is on my # key.... ( ~ )

It stopped and i got a lot of failed mail reports but then the server people sorted it and i haven't had any problem since, but i never click anything i have doubts about.

[Angie]

Soz ...I had to remove the ~ before i emailed anyone for a week or two and replace it each time, it prevents the address being used by anyone else.

[Sheilaz]

Thank you everyone, all really helpful replies.

To have received 3 recent ones made me think the problem was my end, but now I can see it was coincidence, probably due to there being so much spam out there.

I shall inform my affected contacts, so that they can take action.

It isn't an option to ask all my contacts to use key words, many of them are business related, in fact the first one could easily have been a real job offer, and was similar in format to a genuine email that I'd received so didn't ring alarm bells.

It's a shame to have to be so cynical receiving emails, my instinct is to be pleased to hear from people, and although I am usually aware, these ones were very convincing. The thing that stopped me this time was simply that I had been addressed with "hey" and the real sender always says hello or hi, the rest sounded real!

Thanks for all the advice here, I hope it's useful to other members too.