Where is this coming from?

[Virtual Patient]

Hi all,

I seem to have been bitten by something in one of my hotmail accounts.

Last night I received 47 returned emails (undeliverable mails) all from the same address all within a few seconds. Needless to say I didn't send these emails. I have my mail filters on to only receive mail from my contacts .... but these emails obviously thought I had sent them.

This morning when I signed back in to that account I had another 39 emails returned, different addy from last night but all the same addy as each other.

I ran AVG and it found no problems on my system.


What steps can I take to sort this problem out?

VP

[A31Chris]

Probably nothing. Netsky or something of the sort probably got your email address from someone somewhere, spoofed it, and now AV programs are notifying you of the emails the Netsky off somewhere on the net is sending out in your name. I'm getting them too in my Juno account.

You may be able to block receiving E-mails from those people by using your block email addy function.

[Virtual Patient]

Thanks for the reply Chris,

But if that's what's happening....my hotmail account is now totally useless... it will fill up with that junk and not receive any mail.

Is there anything I can do about this?

VP

[hongman]

Are you using an email proggy to access your email, such as Outlook, etc? If you are, make sure AVG scans your mail.

Regards

Hong

ps Dont know how mcuh good it will do but you could try emailing Hotmail to see if they can do anything...

[Virtual Patient]

Hi hongman thanks for the reply

I access hotmail via internet explorer and outlook express and messenger .... depends on what I am doing at the time. But yes I do have avg set up to scan email too

Do you really think the hotmail people will help?

VP

[hongman]

See here: http://www.msn.co.uk/msnhelp/spambuster/

And http://www.msn.co.uk/msnhelp/spambus...on&articleID=6

It seems they have quite a good policy on it. Anyway, it wouldnt hurt to try...

But if Chris is right in saying your email addy has been 'contaminated' its really quite hard to solve...

Please make sure you let everyone in your addresss book know, since if they receive an email that appears to have been sent by you, and they get infected, it could start off a whole loada hassle...

This is definately the work of a virus/spammer...you may have no other option other than to create a new account. If you use Outlook Express at least you can backup all your important stuff. It is near impossible to get off a spammers list. Once you're on one list, you might as well (and usually are) on 100 lists.


Regards and good luck,

Hong

[Virtual Patient]

Thanks again hongman,

I will spend some time reading the links you sent me. If needs be I will just have to cancel that account and start a new one.

Thank you all for your support

VP

[hongman]

Pleasure VP