Help My Email is Hijacked...

[lala_rawraw]

I am in tears, someone changed all of my BCC settings to "to" settings and then sent an email out to all of my contacts, sources, etc... with a swear fest like crazy. I don't even know how to explain this to everyone. How do I stop this? Anyone? I am in tears, good god, I think no one will speak to me again... and hence, no more stories.:(

[not systems]

1. virus?

I would go with that.

[lala_rawraw]

3. Now I cannot

Even get access ... denied. I am locked out of my email. What do I do? Someone help, virus? Okay, will run scan, but I have a firewall!!!

[not systems]

6. What email client are you using and what OS? n/t

[Bluebear]

2. You need to do a mass emailing pronto

explaining the situation and that of course you would not ever send out an email such as the one the hijackers sent.

I am sorry that happened to you, don't cry...those who know you will know something is amiss.

[Fovea]

4. describe your virus protection

and your Email client.

What warnings did you get from your software/OS, etc?

[Sydnie]

5. Create a new account and send out an announcement to all in your

address book about the hijacking. Hijacking email addresses or accounts is not that uncommon these days, so hopefully, most people will understand what happened and not hold it against you.

[Technowitch]

7. You likely have a trojan of some kind on your system

...possibly also spyware.

You should run your virus checker with the latest definitions, as soon as possible.

You also ought to run some anti-spyware software. A good one hs 'Spybot - Search and Destroy', available for free here:
http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html

Additionally, if you don't own software for antivirus scanning, to the McAfee or Symantec websites. I believe each has a low-end free version available.

[Betsy Ross]

9. I believe Norton (www.symatec.com) has an online

virus checker which you can use for free. They offer it so you can clean your system before buying and downloading their software.

[mattclearing]

26. www.symantec.com

Without the n, the address won't work.

:)

[mermaid]

11. Also Try Running Ad-Aware

It'll get rid of lots of Spyware...and often Trojan Horses come in on Spyware and Adware.

download it for free at www.lavasoft.com

[paineinthearse]

12. I've used lavasoft for several months and find it to be very adequate. nt

[WillowTree]

8. In addition...

....to all the other good advice given already, if you're using an e-mail account through your ISP, call their CS desk ASAP in case anyone complains about the e-mails that are being sent so that they will know that it isn't you sending them. They may also want to gather some information from you to, hopefully, try to trace the culprit.

Good luck. I'm sorry that this has happened to you. I know it must be terribly upsetting. Hoping that you will be able to get it straightened out quickly.

[n2mark]

10. Don't know if this is related

but sometimes I go to delete email I sent to others, I know there are several but there are no emails that I sent. Is this part of Spyware? I know who I send my email and when I send email.
What I do now is delete as soon as I send.

[lala_rawraw]

19. Yeah, the thing he found

was spyware, but he (my husband) said that it could not run email programs or something... I don't speak this language, but yeah.

[bpilgrim]

13. switch to a new email client - THUNDERBIRD

http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird
if you're using microsoft

won't undo whats already been done but it may help prevent future attacks

gl

peace

[Renew Deal]

25. That won't make a difference

If they have her password.

[bpilgrim]

28. it will, if they're using her/his CLIENT to get the password

FYI: NOTHING is secure once they got your PASSWORD... ;->

disclaimer: after EVERY violation update your PASSWORDS and TOSS Microsoft

peace

[LoZoccolo]

14. Could you post the email that it sent out?

It might help us identify what it is that did it.

[Dcitizen]

15. Hacker's spy program already sat in the PC

that's how it sent all your guests' email addresses and your info
to their PC, and I think you must be a VIP for hacker's target.

Legally, should report the incident to the authority to obtain a legal written complaint, and also file the complain to the service provider; etc.

Technicallly, please do this as professional advice:

1. Unplug internet line.

Take 1 hour to do this:
2. Backup your need data.
3. Restore original software; XP should keep a copy of your old
information then you can reuse.

or 15 minutes quick fix (not in this case):
4. Run MS Spy detector program or any of detector software
5. Follows the instruction and delete unneed programs.

6. Open a Yahoo email, they have excellent SPAM email protection.
and please never open a strange email again!
6a. Delete fax messages to email.
7. Install a firewall software, it can be helpfuf sometimes.
8. In future, unplug the internet line immediately whenever your PC is unussual slowdown, restart PC and do step 4 and 5.
9. Setup a dummy email without receiving any message and connect it
your cell phone. Whenever receiving an income message, you should be alert immediately.

PM me as need.

[understandinglife]

16. Most importantly -- please KNOW that all of us who know you realized....

...that that email was so far out of context from anything you would ever do and you got your alert to all of us, quickly.

You have not lost any credibility and you are doing the correct things -- notifying folk, etc.

This will pass.

Peace.

[lala_rawraw]

18. Looks like

While you and a few others agree, some do no not. Thanks much for your email:) It was refreshing. I don't know why anyone would think me as dishonorable as to openly reveal the email addresses of everyone, including my own family, but there you have it. Okay, anyway, that is the latest and greatest on the saga.

[lala_rawraw]

17. Here is the update

Another email was sent from "me" to EVERYONE (mentioned in my initial post) with nothing but swearing and again used the "TO" field. I was playing Sims2 and listening to Mike M when a friend on the list called to tell me. I then sent an email out to everyone really quick telling them to use my Gmail account for a while. Then everything locked up and then the tech guy for our server locked my SMPT and is forwarding sent mail to me at Gmail.

Sorry for the delay in response, am running a high fever and just really shocked that this happened. I spent all day calling everyone and hoping that all of my bridges were not burnt.

My husband ran a virus scan last night, he found something, but not a virus. He explained it to me but it is Greek to me, such things. He said that Norton, although identifying it, did not quarantine it. He also said that this 'thing" was not able to work like a program that could mess with my email (this is me paraphrasing him, sorry if it sounds stupid).

My husband said something was up, however, as our comp clock kept setting the time (only the hour field) off and somehow our firewall was deactivated and all of our security settings were reset to defaults.

But he could not find what could cause such a thing. So he is partitioning the hard drive and taking each application and scanning it then moving it to the "clean" side. In the mean time, I deleted my entire address book (printed it) and let us hope this stops whatever it is that happened.

I am running on XP, but I recently started using the Mozilla email thing, and stopped using Outlook Express. Someone asked, so there you are. I don't know what any of this is. Could it be just a glitch in Mozilla?

[ChicanoPwr]

20. check you inbox n/t

[lala_rawraw]

21. I did, you mean here?

I did. When I tried to use Gmail, my system crashed. Then I finally got in, but it would not let me sent to your email account. Were you able to send to my Gmail? What is going on? Is Gmail acting crazy today or is it me?

[ChicanoPwr]

22. It has happened me too.

[Dcitizen]

23. It's Mozilla holes

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/holes/story/0,10801,100060,00.html?source=NLT_VVR&nid=100060

I dont think can find any virus.

50% chance of success for another quick fix is to
uninstall email engine including all registers, get out Mozilla, and
install other email software.

[B Calm]

27. I would get rid of the Norton and download the free AVG anti

virus protection. Norton is worthless and can cause more problems than it solves.

[Blue_Roses]

29. I've had this happen twice in the last month

I have Mozilla Firefox too. I installed Norton 2005 and it fixed the problem. I am watching this like a hawk. It totally crashed my system BOTH times in 12 days and it wouldn't let me get on the net and it disabled my old Norton ( it was 2000--was told as long as I did the live updates I would be okay...didn't work that way:eyes:)

I sugggest you get the latest Norton and let it do it's work. 2005 fixed my problem, but still worry about security holes.

[ChicanoPwr]

24. I was told by a really good source

to look out for odd looking Yahoo login pages. Big Brother has figured out their is a certificate problem with Yahoo but not the details of the login page.

[ChicanoPwr]

30. I also had problems with my .msn email and .gmail

Remeber, our email has to go through Big Brothers' Carnivore and Echelon is if their is anything that happens to be a red-flag it will be zapped. Ever notice when you write something controverial, such as exposing the neo-con. remember the CIA has been purged of all liberals, they have the ability to put trojan scripts.

[Dcitizen]

31. One of common methods to keep stand alone PC up running and protect data.

Save your old PC and use one of PCs as primary one, stand alone, to deal with emails and any information you want to share with other people if they can get in your PC, and use the other one as offline base work station to store all confidential information.

Depending on how often you use internet and email to decide where the faster PC should be used. A Pentium 3 PC without any extra software can run as fast as Pentium 4 one with a bunch of software. Most old PC already had network adapter card, so no need to buy an octobus (external network adapter) to connect 2 computers together.

Setup a shared folder of My Documents or Temp and any firewall in the offline PC, and My Download, Favorites in the internet PC.

Setup a home base network, direct connection between two PCs with data cable cat 5. Connecting cat 5 cable whenever you need to attach files to email from the shared folder, or to save and transfer the download file from emails which has been scaned against virus thoroughly, or to backup the folders of My favorites and email address.

If the frontier PC is down for any reason, then you still be able to connect to internet immediately while reinstalling the software for the crippled PC. If you have another old PC, it can be helpful
in this case.

You have the guest room and the private room, make the best use of the old stuff and can keep important data privately along with the hard disk drives.

It takes about 15 minutes for a network specialist/amateur to setup a direct connection with good PC systems.
:-)