people getting spammed under my name :(

Hello everyone,

I dont know whats going on but somehow EVERYONE in my contact list is receiving an advertisement from my email!

Here is the thing, I'm using GMAIL. I access it through their website online. I dont use any email software. I access it from my laptop and sometimes from work. I know this is the mistake, work. the computers are filled with viruses.

now the problem EVERYONE including my bosses, business associates and EVERY are receiving silly emails UNDER MY NAME. And its not like the email is being sent to someone at a time no. its being sent to ALL OF THEM at once (u can see all of their emails in the header).

how can i fix this? I just changed my password as a start.

 

Have you run a virus scan?

Do you have a real time anti-virus software? I.E; Avast, Norton, McAfee, etc etc

 

i think i've heard this type of virus a looooooooooong way back. haven't you use anti-virus? try use a virus scan. and change your password and the secret question.

try talk to the IT people? why is their computer virus filled?

 

i have anti virus on my laptop but at work no antivirus, no IT people. believe it or not. a government building filled with labs and computers but not IT people.

 

any idea how to fix the problem beside antivirus if I can touch the infected computer? becaue it only sends email from my contact list that is in GMAIL not in outlook or anything.

 

Run full anti-virus's scan's on both computers. Your personal one, and the one at work.

It sounds like a Virus.

 

if you are NOT using an e-mail client (no Outlook / Bat / Thunderbird / whatever), i seriously doubt that it is caused by a virus.

a virus could cause this if there was an e-mail client installed in your computer AND configured to be able to use your gmail account, there are some trojans doing this. is that possible (even if you don't actually use the e-mail client), like something configured & abandoned?

if it's not that case: changing the password was a good start, as if it's *really* sent out from your account, it could be some keylogger's job (kind of spyware). anyway, if it's still there, if you use your new password on the infected computer, you are where you were before.

there is a possibility that the e-mails are NOT sent from your account, as spambots are mostly using fake addresses (they pretend to be sent from a certain person - to look trustworthy, an address is used which is known to the recipient... very often i'm receiving spam from my own domain, or my own address, and of course i have not sent it nor a trojan did). if it's this case, you cannot do much about it. just bug your bosses to use a proper spamfilter on the mailserver.

some conclusion... tell your bosses to hire some IT guy to do something with the computers. "government building filled with labs and computers"... and viruses... ugly. viruses & other malware can be pretty dangerous, not only making your work harder, but especially bringing some security issues (i believe you've heard about spyware, stealing data etc). it should be someone's responsiblity that all computers are protected!! having an open network without security software... geez.

so... have an antivirus (really), make them use antispam & explain them that what they get IS spam, and... don't use gmail at work
(don't take the last one too seriously)

 

Yes. I should of edited my post, and said virus/spyware/keylogger.

If he has no anti-virus at work, then his first step is to rule out the possibility of a virus/spyware/keylogger by installing an anti-virus, and running a full scan.

 

You have an email worm on the work computer thats guaranteed. Possible trojan(s) also.
run this at home to verify you are clean, and at work. There is no download. its a free online scanner/cleaner. Eset's NOD32 is pretty much the best antimalware program on the market right now, and has won more virus bulletin awards than either Symantec's Norton, or Mcafee.
http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/

 

ok thanks for the info guys, but what i dont understand is... how can it get my whole contact list and send the spam emails to all of them at once? doesn't that have to be done manually?

 

no ideas? i mean i get the keylogger thing, but how does it then access the email and send emails?

 

a keylogger may be (mis)used by its author - it sits in the computer, listens to the traffic, collects passwords... and sends them out to the master, who may be a teenage eejit having fun of stealing people's e-mail access and pretending to be them. so, it can be also a human being somewhere using this keylogger to get the access and then manually sending stupid e-mails.

but it's just a theory, there are probably many possibilities...

 

Not that it matters but, yes, there is a download to use their online scanner.