Victim of Spam Email Attack

BhoscaCapall

Just checked my emails to find 37 replies, all auto-responses from spam emails sent from email my address today. Also had a few friends asking why I'd emailed them about some Chinese website etc

By the look of things it's sent out hundreds, to my whole address book I expect. I actually have a number of email addresses but they're tied to one. All these have been sent from one of the addresses (not the main one). I've no idea why. I run MSE and have a relatively secure browser so I don't think it's a virus or anything.

Is there anything I can do?

cursai

Block all the addresses and they'll get tired. stop giving .your email to website. Or change email altogether

ASJ112

Block all the addresses and they'll get tired.

Spam bots are the ones sending out the emails on his account so its unlikely they are going to get tired.

Chances are you got phished or your password got hacked. I assume MSE found nothing with a scan ?

Change your password, make it more complicated by using upper and lower case characters, numbers/symbols, and longer. That should do the trick.

BhoscaCapall

I haven't received the spam. It's been sent from my address.

Fuh Q

This happened to me a while ago, my email sent out lots of random messages.
I changed my password and it stopped.

ISO27001

I know it is a bit of a hassle but it is worth it to institute a personal password procedure. We all have a plethora of sites and passwords we use. This needs to be organised and the procedures followed. IE change passwords at regular intervals. If your organised it will be painless and you won't forget or lose the passwords. I know its sounds like overkill and you will never know how well its working for you because you never have a problem. But experience the hassle once of having credit cards and email addresses used for criminal purposes and you'll see how important this is.

gerryk

ISO27001 wrote: »

I know it is a bit of a hassle but it is worth it to institute a personal password procedure. We all have a plethora of sites and passwords we use. This needs to be organised and the procedures followed. IE change passwords at regular intervals. If your organised it will be painless and you won't forget or lose the passwords. I know its sounds like overkill and you will never know how well its working for you because you never have a problem. But experience the hassle once of having credit cards and email addresses used for criminal purposes and you'll see how important this is.

I use Lastpass. It took a while, but I now have individual, strong (10char alphanumeric+special char) passwords for all online accounts.

I also use Google 2 factor auth for all google services.

BostonB

How do you handle such complex passwords on mobile phone etc's

gerryk

BostonB wrote: »

How do you handle such complex passwords on mobile phone etc's

Dolphin Browser + Lastpass Plugin for Android

Also, it is possible to access the Lastpass site and read passwords from there.

ISO27001

gerryk wrote: »

Dolphin Browser + Lastpass Plugin for Android

Also, it is possible to access the Lastpass site and read passwords from there.

Unfortunately there is no painless way of doing this although it is getting much easier. But if you get stung you realise how much its worth.