Tutor
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2 Messages
hijacked email address
my at&t email address was hijacked to send spam messages ... these messages do not show up in my email account and I have no knowledge of them until alerted by a recipient. How can I stop this? Changing the password did not help
Computer_Joe
Master
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5.9K Messages
10 years ago
Unless you've been the recent victim of a virus or other malware, I doubt the emails are actually coming from your ATT/Yahoo account. Anyone can send an email from anywhere in the world and use your address as the sender.
I can give you another scenario (which I've personally witnessed), which is most likely what happened..
When you send an email message out to everyone on your contact list at once using "send to all", "reply to all", or "forward to all" (which is what most usually people do), whomever receives that message has your address as well as the addresses of everyone on your contact list. If one of those recipient's computer is infected with a vrus or other malware, the purpose of which is to "harvest" email or live email addresses, you basically just sent them (the spammers) your email and contacts list, which precludes the neccessity to "hack" your account.
Once your contact list has been obtained, there's nothing you can do other than change your email address or wait untill they get "bored" with your info due to lack of response. To speed up their disinterest in your particular contact list, they (spammers) can not get any responses from the recipients. You must inform all your contacts that they are to immediately delete, without opening (preview pane/window equals opening), any of the spam messages they receive. To ensure they know the difference, inform them you will put a "code word" in the subject line of the message (maybe something like "NO SPAM") so they know it is actually from you. Normally, after about a month or so of zero responses from your contacts, the spammers will get "bored" with your list and move on to the next list they've stolen.
If they/you use a third party email program (like Outlook) that allows them to turn off delivery and read receipts, they should do so, as those receipts are a good way to reveal a live email address to the spammers.
To prevent this type of thing from happening, I do not send messages to more than one contact at a time, or if needed, I will use "Bcc" (blind carbon copy), which will hide from the recipient all the other contacts the message was sent to.
Also, to reduce the chances of someone hacking your account, never use the "Keep me logged/signed in" or "remember me" options when signing in to important accounts like email and banking sites and sites where you make purchases. Doing so places cookies on your computer so these sites "remember" you when you return. If your computer gets infected by a virus or other malware, these cookies can be stolen and used to access those sites impersonating your already signed in computer.
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How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
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I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
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There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.
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herby325
Tutor
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2 Messages
10 years ago
Thanks very much.
Herb
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Computer_Joe
Master
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5.9K Messages
10 years ago
No problem. Glad to be of assistance.
Be sure to stop back if you have any other questions or would care to participate further on the forum.
__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them." :Bertrand Russell
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