Email advice: SO I just now checked my "sent" folder...

[arcane1]

and found an email from last night that was "sent" to half a dozen of my contacts. Of course, it was spam containing poor grammar and a suspicious link.

Obviously I didn't "send" this, and there was nobody else here. Any ideas on how they managed to do this? I've seen spam sent to me that appears to have been sent from my own address, but it's never appeared in the Sent folder before.

I've changed my password, anyway.

[yourout]

1. You very likely have a computer virus. Possibly a root kit.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Is it a local or online Sent Folder?

If it is local, your machine is compromised. Reload from scratch and be more careful in the future.

If it is online, a password change may be enough.

[arcane1]

3. It's online (Yahoo)

So hopefully I'm ok now *fingers crossed*

But I'm running a virus scan nonetheless :)

[Rex]

4. Dunno, but if your computer starts to freeze up then work after

a few seconds and this happens repeatedly...you have a worm or virus in your system.

[malletgirl02]

5. Same thing happened to me

A spammer used my email address to send spam. fortunately it was an old email account and didn't have many contacts, but pissed that it happen. I agree with the first person who responded to you, your computer probably has a virus.

[bananas]

6. Malwarebytes

They have a free version you can download and run right away
http://www.malwarebytes.org/

If you decide to buy it,
I think the boxed CD sold at retail stores like Best Buy includes free telephone support,
but you should double-check that.

[arcane1]

8. That's what I just ran, and came up clean :)

[Digit]

9. They will give you free support even if you don't buy it

But it will be through the forum.

I purchased MBAM and have the option to have support via email which is quicker.

You can d/l it through their site.

[RamboLiberal]

7. yahoo - probably hijacked your account

One of my users got a rootkit from a yahoo email from a hijacked account. Make sure new password is very strong.

I see a number of hijacked yahoo accounts emails blocked by our company spam filter.

I doubt your PC is infected unless an email in sent folder infected & you opened. Yahoo seems especially bad for getting hacked.