Friday, August 7, 2009

Is someone stealing my internet, using my email account or is it spyware?

In my hotmail account, I get a lot of emails that say undeliverable mail, but I am not the one sending it out. It shows mostly russian lettering in the subject line. I haven't opened any of it being afraid that it might contain a virus. I would hate that it be someone using my email.
Is someone stealing my internet, using my email account or is it spyware?
Krystal: It could be spyware, why don't you download Avast from cnet.com, and install on your computer, it is free, and checks your emails. This will take the guess out and let you know for sure.


Good Luck





http://www.download.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-F...
Reply:By all means check your machine for virus's %26amp; spyware. That's basic security. Check out avast.com for "Avast!" anti-virus which has a free for personal use version and also see lavasoft.com and look for Ad-Aware Free, a free for personal use version. Avast is very diligent about keeping itself up-to-date, and has a cute, but ultimately annoying characteristic of loudly announcing "Virus database has been updated!" Fortunately, you can easily turn off the announcements. I have no financial connection with these entities and I'm referring you to the free editions in any case.





On the other hand, the cause of your unexplained bounced emails may be slightly less nefarious. Someone may simply be putting your address in the Reply-To: field of their spam emails, or even hacking them into the Sender: field, so that the email bounces for undeliverable mail go to you and don't end up clogging their mailbox. Unfortunately for you and the rest of us, our email addresses are frequently available to be harvested from any number of web sources. They are not only used to send us stuff we don't want, but to help the spammers avoid getting stuff they don't want. It's "slightly less" because it doesn't involve compromising your machine, but only "slightly" because the underlying purpose is as nefarious as it ever is in such cases and it ends up wasting your time, disk space and bandwidth.





Just a couple of years ago, I had the same thing happening. Dozens of bounced emails that I knew I wasn't sending were landing in my emailbox. I checked my machine thoroughly and found it to be clean. I asked around, just as you did, and got the same answer I'm giving you now. Your own Internet Service Provider will likely tell you the same. Some ISP's have a free-for-members security suite they will steer you to.
Reply:comodo.com offers a complete security suite free their firewall is easy to operate and the rest is install and forget and it works for vista all of this from the oldest computer security company...and it checks your email
jewish name

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