Help with E-mail (Yahoo) have I been hacked??

[wine~o]

I'm about as computer savvy as an amoeba...so excuse me if this is a long and rambling post...

I have an e-mail address ending "Rocketmail.com" which is hosted by Yahoo...

Last night, I apparently e-mailed everybody in my address list (And a few that weren't) just after midnight.... whilst I was safely tucked up in bed...

One or two of these were "Bounced" back to me as they contained spam...

the E-mail that I apparently sent (Whilst both I and the 'puter were asleep) appeared to come from me, and contained a link to ??? no-one has been brave enough to click on it....I hope...

I ran AVG anti virus (Free version) this morning...nothing...

To be sure, I also ran Malware anti thingy (Mbam) again the free version...nothing..

Can anyone enlighten me as to whether this is a problem my end or with the Yahoo mail service? and how to prevent a recurrence??


TIA...

[philprime]

Go in and change your password that normally helps

[BillyGoat]

Change password - it's not your machine.

It's all you can do - see this for an idea: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/03/0 ... incidents/

My brother has been done. He's got an iPad and was at work at the time his account got hit - it's not you, but a long running series of exploits on Yahoo's side.

You'll have no doubt sent an email to everyone you have communicated with emailing a link, to which they got compromised. Shame on them for clicking mails out of the ordinary.

If you see the mails or bounces, it's usually sent to one to three people.

Shame on them for not fixing the issue.

Regards,

BG

[thescruff]

I got one from Mike and yes I deleted it, so no idea if it contained a link or not.

Strangely I had another one from the league secretary, that was suspicious a few hours earlier, that got the same treatment.

[wine~o]

Big thanks BillyGoat...I was thinking it was me being a numpty...

[Wes]

I was thinking it was me being a numpty...

No comment

Just to add, I get on average 30 bounced back emails a day...returned to sender types...I got in touch with my host provider (1&1 ) and they just said, 'this happens and it'll probably go away one day'...Great! I'll just sit here deleting emails all day then

[northwales4u]

Do you use Facebook at all because every now and again I get spam emails of people who are "Friends" on Facebook and I have checked with them personally and they don't have my email address but Facebook is the only common denominator

[wine~o]

Nah...I don't do Twitface or whatever...

As per BG's post ....apparently a known problem with Yahoo hosting...

So Yesterday I changed my password....

This morning I went to E-mail to see a message ...

"We have noticed some unusual activity on your account, your account has been frozen until such time as you change your password & re-authenticate yourself...."




Pffffttt...do keep up Yahoo..

[northwales4u]

I'm not sure if its related but just noticed on the Yahoo! Homepage it says
"Sorry! Some Yahoo! content is currently unavailable - please bear with us while we fix the problem."

[BillyGoat]

I'm not sure if its related but just noticed on the Yahoo! Homepage it says
"Sorry! Some Yahoo! content is currently unavailable - please bear with us while we fix the problem."

More likely they can't find any content sh*t enough to put on their front page, so the message was the next best thing!!!

[tombarry]

Happened to me once -changed my pass 2 or 3 times and apart from spam its OK now
called 'spoofing' apparently

lots of posts about this here

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-10149_102-3 ... g-from-me/

[BillyGoat]

Tom,

spoofing is when emails are sent with forged return/sender details. If the receiver has a poor internet provider, then the mail will make it though - if not, it'll bounce back to the "sender" for them to read, who more than likely contacts people with the mail letting them know.......

No account details are needed for this.

The problem above is they actually HAVE the real password and access - the mails are from him. If he gets one of the mails back, you can check the header information and see it is 100% genuine and sent from his account. Change of password and hope Yahoo fix the issue is the best he can hope for.

Spoofing has it's fun uses too.....it's possible to call people using VOIP or to send text messages using an internet gateway provider. Why? so you can forge your own ID.

Few, if any phones have any protection against this......If I sent a message to you from your mates number, it would show up from your mate. The ONLY way to prove it, really, is to check his phone bill logs......hardly the thing on your mind when it happens.



Ahhh, got to laugh.

[buteman]

Last year a lot of people with gmail accounts had a problem similar to this. I know because I was one of them and so was my son in law.

It will probably not go away it's just the nature of computing and those who like to abuse the system.

One tip I got was to always send emails you are sending to more than one person BCC because if someone else gets access to one of the recipients PC's they will be able to see all of the email addresses but if they are sent BCC they can't.