Fake Email

[Saphira]

Today i recieved a Fake Email from my friend, (but it wasnt actually from my friend) I clicked on it as it said private message from friend and the email was an exact replica of my friends..So now it has sent out spam mail, so im sorry guys if ive got any1's email addy and u receive and email saying Private message from Jackie... Please Please ignore this, this is how i got caught out, Sorry guys i just didnt notice it until it was too late

[SLiiDE]

Is it a hotmail account by any chance?

[Saphira]

yes it is
I just didnt no until i opened the email fgs....maybe if i was more computer literate and aware of this crap that goes about i wouldnt of been so stupid as to open it...

[SLiiDE]

I think something is going on with hotmail, Two of my emails, and 3 of my friends have had their hotmail emails taken over by spammers

[Jedi]

Was going to warn you that you had virus when i saw it but you noticed it before i could warn you.
Hope your computer is clear now, its not always easy to see whats fake and not either.

[SLiiDE]

If spammers have gotten hold of it, theres nothing you can really do. Your computer should be fine though

[Saphira]

Ive done a virus check and nothing has been picked up also done spybot search n destroy and nothing came up there either, i think it if u actually click on the post master return thing, inwhich i didnt as at that point i realised something wasnt right....some ppl got nothing better to do..grrrrrr

PW's also changed

[SLiiDE]

When it happened to me few months ago, i noticed i had 10,000 emails in my outbox. Changed my password and stuff, scanned my PC and nothing showed up. Few days later hotmail blocked my email address because i was a suspected spammer. All the spammers need to know is your email address, then they can send emails to anyone and make it appear it was sent by you. Basicly, they could of done it without even trying, just getting hold of your email address.

[Zipppy]

It has happened to my friend's emails before, I just reported it as hacked.

something similar happened to me, but on a much lower level. These "spammers" are most likely bots.

[Jedi]

Hope you also have changed your password,just in case.

[Stevo]

I get them from people. I get loads of spam that goes into my junk mail. I think a hater of mine, don't even know if I had upset anyone but must of put me on a spamming list to sing me up on.

[[TC]»Elmo«]

At a guess, it's some sort of xss type hack that gets your password.

All of these things require someone to click a link to compromise their email, otherwise they'd just read the address book and not need to bother sending the emails out in the first place.

Never click a link in an email that just says something like:
x has sent you a PM
hey, check this out
etc.
It's easy enough to work out where the link is pointing to and the url is usually fairly obvious when it's a fake or scam - it's often a misspelled known website or, as in this case, some random string of characters.

The ones I got came from an IP in Argentina, so whoever's doing it is probably connecting to hotmail via POP and using your password.

[Nipper]

The age old.