Phantom emails - virus? (1 Viewer)

[Ari]

I run what I consider a tight ship, computer-wise. I have the latest Windows updates and I run AVG, also with the latest updates.

However, for the last two days one of the Yahoo groups that I belong to have been receiving emails from my account. I know I didn't send those emails out so I'm wondering if it's a trojan or a virus or something else. The emails contain subject lines such as "Encrypted document" or "New changes" or "Re: message notify" and contains an attachment named "Half_live.com" or "information.zip" or "message.hta".

For the meantime, I'm going to unsubscribe from the Yahoo group that's been getting the emails....

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

Do you think someone could have gotten your Yahoo password?

 

[Ari]

It's possible, but unlikely. I subscribe to quite a number of groups but it's only this group that gets the emails....

I've unsubscribed to the group but I really do want to sign back in....it's my high school group....

 

[SethH]

I doubt anyone has your password. I also doubt you have a virus. Often a virus will attack someone's computer and go through their address book. It then not only sends itself to the people in that address book, but it also uses the names in that address book as the "From" part of the e-mail. Making an e-mail look like it's from someone else is extremely easy (especially running Linux) so it likely has nothing to do with your computer at all.

 

[Ari]

This is my suspicion as well. FYI, I have Spybot running on my computer as well and it hasn't detected anything. I downloaded Trojan Hunter just to be doubly sure and no sign of any trojans either.

How do I find out the one who's infected though?? Or, how do I get our listserv not to accept emails from this sender without setting up a whole new Yahoo profile for myself altogether.....

 

[SethH]

First off, download adaware also. Adaware and Spybot are both good, but often catch different things. Unfortunately there's really no way to stop the e-mails. Any sort of filter would be filtering out all e-mails you sent from the account. This is the reason people are able to spread viruses without getting easily caught . . . because they change the e-mail addresses.