{"id":16503,"date":"2010-05-03T09:23:18","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T14:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/?p=16503"},"modified":"2010-05-03T09:23:18","modified_gmt":"2010-05-03T14:23:18","slug":"ask-leo-that-email-looks-like-its-from-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/ask-leo-that-email-looks-like-its-from-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask Leo: That Email Looks Like Its From Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"askleo\"<\/p>\n

By Leo Notenboom<\/p>\n

Hi,somebody is sending emails to my contacts using my email address to which
\nI haven’t sent. How can this be? Have I been hacked into? I do have full
\ninternet security avg 9,could you please let me know what action to take if any
\nas I find this quite worrying! I have changed my password so far, but that is
\nall.<\/em><\/p>\n

You should be worried.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m not sure that I’d say you’ve been “hacked into”, but my guess is that
\nyour email account has indeed been compromised.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ll look at what likely happened, why this isn’t like other “Someone’s
\nsending from my email address!” kind of issues, and what steps you need to take
\nnext.<\/p>\n

The big clue here is that email is being sent from you to contacts
\nin your address book<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

“Most email programs now carefully protect against
\nunauthorized address book access.”<\/div>\n

In the “old days”, that typically meant that your computer had acquired a
\nvirus, and that virus was in turn accessing your PC’s email program and
\nsystematically sending email to everyone in your contact list or address
\nbook.<\/p>\n

While that’s still a possibility – and you should absolutely make sure that
\nyour anti-malware tools are running and up to date – it’s not nearly as common
\nas it once was. Most email programs now carefully protect against unauthorized
\naddress book access.<\/p>\n

What more likely occurred is that your email account has been compromised
\n – meaning that you probably have an on-line email account, free or otherwise, that
\nsomeone has gained access too. By virtue of doing so they now have access not only
\nto your email, but to your address book as well. It’s all too common these days to hear
\nof folks whose accounts have been compromised only to have all their friends
\nget inundated with spam, threats, malicious emails or messages that try to
\nimpersonate you and scam your contacts out of money.<\/p>\n

How this happened is difficult to say. It could be anything from a weak
\npassword that’s easy to guess, to your account credentials being sniffed in an
\nopen WiFi hotspot, to your simply having shared the account information with
\nsomeone you should not have.<\/p>\n

For all we know, it could also be a roommate walking up to your computer
\nwhen you’re not using it and sending messages right then and there.<\/p>\n

(And for the record, last year there was a partial account compromise at one
\nof the larger free email services – account credentials were stolen without the
\nusers having done anything wrong. Same result.)<\/p>\n

I’ve talked before about email that appears to come from you, but in fact
\ndoes not. This is different. Specifically:<\/p>\n

  • \n

    Spam email is sent to random people you don’t know, “spoofing” the From:
    \naddress to make it look like it comes from you when it does not. There is
    \nalmost nothing that can be done about this.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n

    Email from stolen accounts is sent to people in your address book<\/em>,
    \nand is not spoofed at all – it really is coming from your account. It’s just
    \nnot you sending it.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Is Changing Your Password Enough?<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    [This post is excerpted with Leo’s permission from his Ask Leo<\/a> blog.]<\/p>\n

    Leo Notenboom has been involved in the tech industry for nearly 30 years. After retiring from an 18 year career as a Microsoft Software Engineer Leo went on to create Ask Leo!<\/a>, a free web site where he answers real questions from ordinary computer users.<\/i><\/p>\n

    FaceBook URL: Leo’s Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

    Twitter URL: http:\/\/twitter.com\/askleo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \"askleo\"<\/p>\n

    By Leo Notenboom<\/p>\n

    If your contacts are getting email from you that you didn’t send, then it’s very likely that your email account has been compromised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":66012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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