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TwistedKestrel
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Surge of spam

Tue May 13, 2014 8:55 pm

There is something new going around that is lifting people's contact lists and spamming everyone within them (addressed as from the owner of the contact list, of course). This even happened to me with my Gmail contacts, which I found somewhat baffling. Does anyone have any idea of what it is?
 
TwistedKestrel
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Topic Author
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Re: Surge of spam

Wed May 14, 2014 10:32 am

I probably should have titled this something else, people are probably glossing over this assuming it's another complaint about the forum :P
 
cphite
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Re: Surge of spam

Wed May 14, 2014 11:05 am

TwistedKestrel wrote:
There is something new going around that is lifting people's contact lists and spamming everyone within them (addressed as from the owner of the contact list, of course). This even happened to me with my Gmail contacts, which I found somewhat baffling. Does anyone have any idea of what it is?


Are you certain your gmail account wasn't hacked and someone isn't sending spam as you to everyone on your list?

I'd change your account password, scan your machine for malware, etc.
 
zenlessyank
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Re: Surge of spam

Wed May 14, 2014 11:24 am

I've been through this before myself & other clients of mine. It's USUALLY a virus/Trojan on your PC. Do you use an email client like outlook or thunderbird? If so, then the bug will use your contact list from those programs to send a copy of itself to everyone in your address/contact list. Of course then your friend/co-workers/family get the email from you and since they know you they open the email/attachment then they are infected. It can turn into a real cluster f**k. Use Malwarebytes and a decent AV program(not Norton/mcafee/ms security essentials) in safe mode unplugged from internet. Then be a nice guy and tell everyone in your contact list that you like to mess with pirated software and visiting questionable websites and that you probably sent them a nasty virus so they can fix it or better yet not open it!!!!! PS. It is possible you are a good little net user and don't partake of those things I mentioned earlier and someone else who has YOU in their contact list was infected and sent the nasty to you.

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morphine
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Re: Surge of spam

Wed May 14, 2014 12:02 pm

TwistedKestrel wrote:
I probably should have titled this something else, people are probably glossing over this assuming it's another complaint about the forum :P

Yeah, thanks for the heart attack.

I'm sending you my cardiologist's bill.
There is a fixed amount of intelligence on the planet, and the population keeps growing :(
 
TwistedKestrel
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Re: Surge of spam

Wed May 14, 2014 2:00 pm

cphite wrote:
TwistedKestrel wrote:
There is something new going around that is lifting people's contact lists and spamming everyone within them (addressed as from the owner of the contact list, of course). This even happened to me with my Gmail contacts, which I found somewhat baffling. Does anyone have any idea of what it is?


Are you certain your gmail account wasn't hacked and someone isn't sending spam as you to everyone on your list?

I'd change your account password, scan your machine for malware, etc.


I'm actually not certain, but I don't see hacking of Gmail to be likely. The password I use for it is more or less unique to it. It happened to someone else recently with... possibly a Rogers account, I'm not sure. And then it happened to my mother with a Hotmail account, and the only thing she uses is an Android tablet! I feel like this is XSS.

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