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E-mail address book hacked into (1 Viewer)

joannec

Well-known member
Europe
Hello all

My email was recently hacked when I opened a link which appeared to have come from a friend which led to spammers sending spam to my contacts which then appeared to come from me. Really annoying it was. What is the best, preferably free, software to deal with that?
 
Hello all

My email was recently hacked when I opened a link which appeared to have come from a friend which led to spammers sending spam to my contacts which then appeared to come from me. Really annoying it was. What is the best, preferably free, software to deal with that?

And I was one of your victims Joanne:-C and I stupidly clicked on the link 'cos I thought you were directing me to a BF thread!:gh: None of my contacts appear to have suffered the same fate (I do so hope).

It happened to me again a couple of days later when a girl at the Housing Association had her contacts hacked into, but I didn't know her name so deleted it without opening. Hmmm... she's now on my Spammers list, so I suppose I'll have to sort that somehow LOL.

Is there a way of finding out if someone has got into my Contacts List?
 
Joanne, best advice is NOT to click on links - period! That sounds like a cookie-stealing or XSS (cross site scripting) attack, it may also have led to install of other nasties via an exploit pack on the linked site.

D., if you're still awake - this topic needs to be split if you could, Joanne and Niels each deserve their own threads ;)

When I find some free time today, I'll try to track down some solid do's, dont's and pre-emptive and post-infection actions and list them.
 
I just woke up Andy (er... well sort of ;)) and split the threads!
 
So sorry Delia. I was a victim too. The thing is I normally never click on a link in an email unless I know the person but in this case it came from a friend so I was not suspicious.
 
Quite Joanne, it came from you, so I wasn't suspicious either. Though stupidly I didn't notice that there were a load of people included as addressees.

We've probably both learnt from this - don't beat yourself up about it lass.

Now we just wait for Andy to rap our knuckles ;) :eek!:
 
I don't do knuckle rapping ...

I hope you both ran Malwarebytes (MBAM) after the exploits above? What else did you do?



I can't say I've never done anything similar; whilst checking out a suspicious email for my middle offspring a while ago, I forgot to ask her to log out of her FB account before I pasted the suspect link into the same browser! That was 2 Very Bad Things: remaining logged in and using the same browser session :(

There's really no software that deals with it; there are a few things you could use that will help though but the best method is probably a refresher course in looking at the way you connect to the 'net and plugging any obvious holes in security, without having too many overlaps in software coverage which could bog down and bug Windows or the browser.

First, step back and think before clicking anything you didn't expect or go looking specifically for (see first para., some people refer to it as 'common sense').

Second - change your password NOW, use something difficult to crack (study this cartoon: http://xkcd.com/936/).

Third, read this webpage several times and watch the video clip: Computer security in a nutshell.

Run through the steps in this security wizard and compare the recommendations there with what you currently have.
 
I didn't do anything!

Hmm... just downloaded MBAM as ordered ;) But why do odd things always happen to me when I try this stuff?

I went through the Install boxes OK , but then it wanted to do it again! THEN it told me that "the database is missing or corrupt. Do you want to download a new copy"? So I click on yes and it re-boots my laptop and then I get the same "corrupt" message again!!!

At times like this I just give up!
 
Some recent info on malicious emails, what payloads they carry and how good antivirus programs are at detecting them: http://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/06/a-closer-look-recent-email-based-malware-attacks/ < it's a short write up, please check it out.

Also noticeable is the lack of antivirus detection on most of these password stealing and remote control Trojans. The average detection rate for these samples was 24.47 percent, while the median detection rate was just 19 percent. This means that if you click a malicious link or open an attachment in one of these emails, there is less than a one-in-five chance your antivirus software will detect it as bad.

According to UAB, about two-thirds of the top email-based malware attacks in the past month have used exploit kits, and most frequently that kit was BlackHole. Exploit kits are made to be sewn into the fabric of hacked or malicious sites, so that visiting Web browsers are checked for close to a dozen outdated plugins; any insecure plugins found can be used to silently install malicious software on the vulnerable machine.
 
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