Email has been hijacked?

Discussion in 'Malware Help (A Specialist Will Reply)' started by whatsherface, Jun 24, 2010.

  1. whatsherface

    whatsherface Private E-2

    Someone I know texted me today and said I've been sending them spam from my AOL account. I have ran malware and virus scans but it says all is clean. About a week ago I was getting a bunch of email saying mailer domain (forgot the spelling) unknown. I thought it was weird but I deleted them all thinking maybe something was wrong but I ran my scans and all was fine. Well, it's not. So, what can I do to fix the problem without deleting my account?
     
  2. TimW

    TimW MajorGeeks Administrator - Jedi Malware Expert Staff Member

    Here is a general guide:

    Malware detected in email databases has to be cleaned up by you. You have a few choices:

    1. delete the whole file which is not an option you normally want to use
    2. load the email folder that contains the infection and delete ALL unnecessary emails (hoping to remove the problem email) and then use the Mailbox Cleanup option to delete all old emails. Then compact the Outlook database to permanently remove data. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196990 If you do not cleanup and compact the databases, the deleted emails may still be leaving hidden information in the database that you just cannot see but a scanner may still pickup on it.
    3. create a new folder and move only emails you really need into the new folder and then delete the infected folder.
     
  3. whatsherface

    whatsherface Private E-2

    Oh, I wish I understood everything you said. I may just have to shell out some money to get it fixed. BTW, I'm locked out of my email account now.
     
  4. TimW

    TimW MajorGeeks Administrator - Jedi Malware Expert Staff Member

    How are you locked out of your account? Are you saying that someone may have hacked into your account and changed the password? Is this an online email account? What is the email service you are using?
     
  5. whatsherface

    whatsherface Private E-2

    Okay this is how it goes, my AOL email account was getting a lot of returned emails from dunno where cause I didn't open them thinking they may have had a virus or something. I didn't think anything of it. Thought maybe there was a glitch in AOL or something also. So, a friend lets me know they were getting spam from me. Well, come to find out everybody on my address book was getting spam from me. Dunno how. So, I post on here and a few other sites for help and a few hours later, my password is changed and I couldn't log into my AOL account. I called AOL and had them change the password. Then I changed it myself. I ran scans and nothing seemed wrong. I also deleted everybody from my address book. So, I think the problem is fixed now unless you know something else.
     
  6. TimW

    TimW MajorGeeks Administrator - Jedi Malware Expert Staff Member

    As stated in the general instructions for email infections, you need to delete everything that is in your email in box except for what you know is not infected. Another idea is to create an email contact such as:
    aaa@aaa.com. But no scanner will find the problem as it really is only you that can find and remove the bad ones.

    In the future, you need to use a different computer to change your passwords to be on the safe side.
     

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