Hatrack River Forum: Spam

This is topic Spam in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by Pixie (Member # 4043) on :

Grrrr... Someone hacked into my AOL account and was using it to send out mass e-mails!

I normally NEVER open anything with an unknown sender but a few days ago I got an email from a site I've used a few times so I figured it would be alright. Nope!

I logged on today to find three emails saying that the mail I'd tried to send "could not be delivered to the following addresses". Guess what? The only email I've sent in the past week has been to Amira, Paul's mother, and the occasional copy of something to my own address. I also have never seen a single one of the addresses specified, and the "from" address was different in each of the notices (none of them mine, just a random selection of letters and numbers).

So, I try to talk to someone with AOL but - of course - they were absolutely no help at all [Mad]

.

For now I've changed my password and am really hoping that that will end it [Confused]

.

[ August 28, 2004, 07:18 PM: Message edited by: Pixie ]

Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :

Call the community actions team, if thats not who you talked to.

Edit: Took down the number for company reasons. If you want it later, email me or IM me.

... or ask to be transferred there if you haven't talked to them. I've seen this happen a lot of times- changing your password was a good job. But sadly, you're right, they aren't much help, and neither am I. Registrations. Pretty soon they are going to be setting up a new security feature option (naturally, you'll have to pay like, 10 bucks to get it [Roll Eyes]

). Anyway, keep a close eye on it. Yeah... helpful. [Wink]

[ August 28, 2004, 07:40 PM: Message edited by: T_Smith ]

Posted by Pixie (Member # 4043) on :

Danke, Nathan [Wink]

.

You know that warning on top of everything that says that AOL staff will never ask for your password? I uh... forgot that? [Blushing]

So, yeah - just from what happened I'm pretty confident that the password change ought to fix things but, if not, I'll be sure to call that number [Smile]

Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :

lol, did you give it over email, IM, phone?

If email, report it.
If IM, uh.. ::shrug:: probably not much you could do. Maybe call and tell them the screen name.
If over the phone, definately call and tell them about that.

Posted by Pixie (Member # 4043) on :

I got one of those online greeting card things a few days back but after I clicked the link in the email a screen asked me to put in my screenname and password first to access it?? I thought it was a little strange at the time because I've actually sent a few of those things before and haven't had to do that but it looked real enough so I didn't think anything of it.

I'm not really sure what that qualifies as (IM, email, etc) but that's the only thing I've done out of the norm [Dont Know]

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

Pixie, you most likely have NOT been hijacked. Most spammers fake a return address, and anyone who's sending out an automatic notification is going to send it to the fake return address, not the address from which the mail was automatically sent.

Posted by newfoundlogic (Member # 3907) on :

I've gotten a few of those greetings to. They usually say that you have pictures. The links on the page they take you to are real and page looks genuinenbut if you look at the web address its something that is definitely not AOL.

Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :

Is it possible that nobody has hacked into your account, but that you have contracted a virus which has set up a spam server on your computer? You mentioned having been tricked into opening an e-mail. This happened to me not too long ago, and I got "My Doom" from it. John over at GreNME provided me with a link to this:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.mydoom@mm.removal.tool.html

. . . and it did the trick.

Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :

The three running theories:

1. Someone spoofed your account
2. Your computer has been zapped with a bug
3. Your account was hacked

-Trevor

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

Note that Pixie is actually receiving automated denial messages, meaning that her E-mail account is being used as a return address. I can think of no modern virus which does this; almost all successful viruses now spoof return addresses.

In other words, if you get a message like this, it usually means that you AREN'T spamming -- but that someone who knows you is.

Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :

I got a couple such messages, but maybe they were caused by whoever gave me the virus in the first place . . . [Dont Know]