Was my computer pirated? I am freaked (game, email, screen)

[didee]

This morning I checked my email and had about 20 MAILER-DAEMON (undeliverable) messages. I opened one and it showed that a really old address which is in my address book had an undeliverable message sent to it. Same for many of the others. However, I could see the entire mailing list in these error return notes, and sure enough, one of the people with a valid email address in the list sent me an email saying "hey, you have sent me 2 emails about Viagra today, I think you have a virus." My entire address book was not used, just a part of it.

I ran Norton Live Update (it had expired so I renewed and ran it this morning) and have no viruses.

Any ideas? This is freaking me out. The email even got sent to my father and to JC Penney customer service (they wrote back and said "we're not sure what you want. LOL)!

All the emails were for Viagra from MY email address.

How the heck could this have happened? What should I do? Thanks!

[scarmig]

Someone got your old email address and used it to make their spam appear legitimate.

They may also have gotten hold of your address book from your email. It may not be a virus that Norton would catch, because it may not be a virus. So go and get Malwarebytes and run it as well. Malwarebytes looks for all the other things that are not viruses that can be used against your computer.

How could it happen? Just a guess, a wild stab-in-the-dark guess, so don't feel hurt or upset. I don't really know if this is correct.

My initial suspicion would be that someone on your PC downloaded a program from the internet such as a free screen saver, a game, some utility, a webtoy or something that contained a secondary program. That program is not a virus in that it does not replicate, but it either accesses your email address and uploads them somewhere, or it actually has turned your pc into a zombie. A zombie PC is one that has been coopted by a hacker and is used to send spam and other things. It won't take over or damage your computer, because it doesn't want to be found, so it doesn't act like a virus that way. It is just a way for these spammers to use your computer get their spam out.

In either case, Malwarebytes will probably take care of it.

To prevent in the future, only download from sites you trust, scan everything you download with anti-virus and Malware *before* opening it. And use Firefox with the AdBlock and NoScript add-ons.

And most importantly. Don't panic. Apologize to anyone who has received spam under your email and let them know you are working to contain it.

[didee]

Thank you very much. Would you suggest I download the Sept 10 version on the linked page? I never download anything remotely suspicious (so I thought anyway!), and am paranoid to download this, but need to protect my data. I have Vista 64 bit home/student OS. Thanks!!!

[scarmig]

Malwarebytes is safe. Regardless what version you download, it has an update feature that will put all of it's latest findings on your PC ready-to-go. It does not hurt to be suspicious, but in the case of anti-virus and mal-ware protection, you have to trust them the first time. If you have anti-virus, go ahead and download the Malwarebytes executable and run the anti-virus scan on it. (Most anti-virus add a scan function to the right-click menu. Just right-click on any file in Windows Explorer and select the scan function of your anti-virus and it will scan it and give you the results).

It run it on about 25 PC's that I either own or support and it saved my own PC just a few months ago when my corporate network infected inadvertantly.

[NHDave]

I will 2nd Malwarebytes, download it here Malwarebytes.org click the big blue "Download Free Version" button.

[didee]

Holy cow, it happened again this evening. Notes went out (they are in my "sent" mail folder) to a bunch of people that I did not send! I ran Norton AV and Malware and updated Windows security stuff. How is this happening? Norton says I have no viruses and I only had 1 risk identified "tracking cookies." Malware is still running. I don't understand how someone can send mail from my mail ID and access my address book! If someone is hacking my computer, how can I catch them?

Oh, and when I ran Malware 2 days ago, I got one object in quarantine. It's "Hijack.DisplayProperties" and the category says 'registry data'. That sounds really bad. Do I just leave it there? Does anyone know what that file does?

[scarmig]

Okay, what email are you using? Is it web based? Or is something like Outlook?

Either way, you need to change the password to your email access.

My guess is that a program got onto your system that either captured or logged your email password and transmitted it outside. And whoever got it is using your email password. Change it. Let Malwarebytes clean up anything it finds.

[NHDave]

We should have asked that first, what are you using for email? If web based there was a recent bout of stolen logon info for various services, change your password as suggested.

[didee]

The mail is AOL and also a secondary windows mail service. I will change my passwords. Thanks. (were gmail and bellsouth.net affected also?)

[Tightwad]

Do you leave your computer on a night or when you're at work? If you do then shut the darn thing off so that the bad guys can't hijack it!