Fifty Plus (50+) - OT: Kinda

Perhaps it's just due to my lack of vigilence but I had a scary experience
this past Saturday. I have a Yahoo mail account, and a Roadrunner mail
account. I have my Yahoo address in the contacts list of my Roadrunner
account and vice versa. On Saturday morning, both of my accounts recieved
a Spam e-mail FROM EACH OTHER!!!!!! I do not mail spam. The best I can
figure is that someone got into my computer remotely and routed at least
one spam e-mail through my accounts. My computer is now in the shop
being cleaned up and searched for any tell-tail trail from the perpetrator.
I've since changed all my passwords and closed that Yahoo account. I've
also replaced the wireless router with a hard-wired one. The wife will be
double checking all of our and our daughter's bank accounts quite closely
to ensure that those passwords and accounts weren't compromised before
we were able to change those passwords


Be careful folks. I don't know a lot about this kind of thing but somehow
someone had at least some amount of access to my personal life and
that is very unsettling. Fortunately, I do not keep personal records
on that computer.

I buy online extensively, both at work and at home. I spend about $50 annually at home to keep my antivirus systems up to date. I am very picky about which e-mails I open and which remove from the computer immediately. I open those that I expect. I do not trust those that are unsolicited, even if from someone with whome I do business. If someone mails an attached and forwarded joke list, they are immediately deleated from my list.

From: addresses on spam are ALWAYS forged.

The From: and To: addresses are chosen randomly from list of email addresses that were harvested somewhere. The fact that you appear to gotten mail from yourself is most likely a coincidence.

If you post the full rfc 822 headers I can tell you for sure.

Still, it pays to be careful. I use firefox with ad blocking and scripts disabled. The family computers are set up with antivirus, antispyware and antiadware software (all free BTW). All the computers are also behind a firewalling router.

Yep, they actually removed all my addresses from the contact list on my Yahoo
account and I'm froze out from my Roadrunner account.

A buddy showed my a hard copy of the spam he recieved from me, with all of
my contacts listed as recipients.

Computer is in the shop and co-incidently has a slightly damaged hard-drive,
not related to the e-mail problem, and I'm having a new hard-drive installed so I don't
have a lot of confidence that they'll dig too deeply into the files to find out
what might have happened. After they transfer my files to the new drive
and perform a virus scan etc. they'll probably declare the computer clean.

cranky old spammer

From: addresses on spam are ALWAYS forged.

The From: and To: addresses are chosen randomly from list of email addresses that were harvested somewhere. The fact that you appear to gotten mail from yourself is most likely a coincidence.

If you post the full rfc 822 headers I can tell you for sure.

Still, it pays to be careful. I use firefox with ad blocking and scripts disabled. The family computers are set up with antivirus, antispyware and antiadware software (all free BTW). All the computers are also behind a firewalling router.

Yeah....I've had mail from my website by addresses which don't even exist... I know, because it's my website.

Thanks for all the freaking emails, Cranky Old Dude. You filled up my storage space. I didn't know you were selling pharmaceuticals at 60% off from your house! And thanks for that request to visit Debbie the co-ed. I always need new internet friends. Does she bicycle? I also didn't know you lived in Nigeria, but I sent you the money order just like you asked.

Yeah....I've had mail from my website by addresses which don't even exist... I know, because it's my website.

Thanks for all the freaking emails, Cranky Old Dude. You filled up my storage space. I didn't know you were selling pharmaceuticals at 60% off from your house! And thanks for that request to visit Debbie the co-ed. I always need new internet friends. Does she bicycle? I also didn't know you lived in Nigeria, but I sent you the money order just like you asked.

Do you still have Debbies e_address??...:)

I had the exact same problem with my Yahoo account. The spam e-mail showed up at work, and at all my Yahoo contacts. When I went to the sent folder in my Yahoo acct. there it was. I had never had such a problem with Yahoo before. I think that they are not filtering as well as they used to. I am considering G-mail now because of this.

Not the first time a worm got into the Yahoo mail system and replicated itself.