Email HiJacking - How to Prevent & resolve?

[steve1040]

Good Morning All,

A relative ask me about an issue she is having with her email.
Everyone in her contacts list have gotten emails appearing to be from her advertising different sites.
She is using AT&T

How does this happen? How can I fix it?

Also - I checked my spam folder and I received the email from her

Hi i'm e-mailing this out to my e-friends because i went to this last year and this worked great for valentines day. This website offers really gorgeous things for very low prices that are perfect for valentines day presents. I bought a fake watch and still get compliments on it all the time from people who dont know the difference. These days are tough and we're all trying to save money so i decided to e-email this out to my friends who may have use of it. Dont do what i always do and wait till the last week haha.. check it now so you have} it in time for valentines day.Amazon.com/ValentinesDay

 

[MobileTechie]

She's probably been infected with a virus or backdoor, or was using a weak password. You need to have a look at her machine. All the usual methods apply.

 

[KM@ Dave]

Use strong passwords, McAfee site advisor is also good to keep people away from those sites crawling with Malware.

She may as well go and change her email now if not too much hassle, as she'll forever be receiving spam, and malicious emails.

And as you can already guess, tell her to update her anti-virus/malware software daily. If this problem is due to a virus/backdoor/rootkit, she may need to consider changing anti-virus. Maybe suggest MalwareByte's full protection to her as in the long run may help a lot.

Another issue I can think of is a flimsy password reset option, sometimes "hackers" can use typical Social Engineering to gather this information to access your email, personally I fill the password reset information with garbage and use another email to reset (If applicable)

Hope this helps.

 

[dogskool]

Here is a site that offers great resources on learning about and dealing with spam:

http://spamlinks.net/index.html

 

[AdamsAPlus]

This can also be because of forwards. If you receive an email all you have do to is look through the email trail. Then you pick on person and see who all they sent the email to.

Chances are it's one of the above problems but I would cover every possible option.

Tell her if she ever sends out forwards to put all her contacts as BCC: Delete previous trail. Tell her to ask everyone that sends her forwards to do the same.

I know every time I get a forward I have access to hundreds of names and addresses. If I was a spammer then I would have all I needed with a few forwards.

 

[vdub12]

Shes lucky to have her e-mail honestly. I have had a number of clients that lost it all together. The hacker changes the password and security questions and they have no access at all to it.

@KM - I guess I do have to much time on my hands