Spam emails with a strange yahoo.com email address?
I have been getting emails addressed to one of my email accounts, not my yahoo account. There usually is no Subject. The message shows that it is from one of my contacts, but the return email address is not the name of my contact and is always some yahoo.com account. Also, some of my contacts are getting similar messages with my name as the sender but with a yahoo.com email address (not mine) associated with my name. What's going on and is there a way to stop it?
Comments
You can't stop them, these are criminals who are constantly attempting to infiltrate your computers. You must be constantly on guard.
Someone is trying to impersonate you and your contacts, attempting to get you to sucker into a scam or scheme.
This is called "spear-phishing" where a criminal tries to get the recipient to go to a hacker's website which attempts to attack the computer to install malware, or to get the recipient to open a document that contains exploit code that intalls malware.
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2011/08/is-that-a-virus...
Microsoft has had to update Windows every month to remove "holes" in their software that these criminals can hack into. Recently Adobe has been having to also update frequently because Flash Player is being attacked and Adobe Reader is being attacked. Java (the programming language) is also being attacked very successfully.
You can read about the recent updates at Krebs On Security
http://krebsonsecurity.com/
Adobe Flash Player :
http://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/adobe-flash-player/
Adobe Reader :
http://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/adobe-reader/
Java :
http://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/java/
The comments from readers at the end of each article are also quite interesting.
WIkipedia has a short article about Brian Krebs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Krebs
As far as your friend-
This spammer has hacked into the account and put his address in the forward box
To change this.. she needs to go to
Inbox page> Options>Forwarding
( Yahoo its under POP & Forwarding)
She needs to get a more secure password..or she's answered some phishing email
that was phony and gave out her password
Or its a dictionary word, and they merely ran password software and got it.
But its too easy to fool people into giving out their password..via some fake mail that
says their account will close unless they verify it now. And they give the info
Yours
He's not using your address, so it doesnt look like he's accessed your acct
But change your password asap..anyway.
https://edit.yahoo.com/forgotroot/
So, how did he get your contacts.
Im wondering if you or your friend do those fwd fwd emails with lots of names on
them. They dont need to be in your account, when people provide their contacts easily
Always use the BCC line-blind carbon copies
( found above the TO line) to hide all addresses.
He mightve been in your friends sent mail.. harvesting addresses.
If you have alot of the same friends..then thats better for you..he just got your
contacts from your friends list. Or digging in sent mail..that you maybe sent
this friend and others.
That blank email isnt blank .. there's something on it... that you cant see
Could be virus, spyware..tracking. Everything is so electronical..they can do so
much now.
If your not terribly connected with this email and a lot of sites
Just open a new one and close this one
I've been having similar problem, & it's been going on around 2 years. Am trying to get ahold of Yahoo customer support. Don't open any links in the emails- there could be viruses.
YOU CANT STOP THEM
......................................
Such addresses are in such a plenty that you can not even block all of them. Blocked addresses limit is 25 probably.
Where you are not really familiar with the senders e-mail address ........
.......... Simply delete e-mails from them without opening.