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Old 09-12-2015, 06:00 AM
 
Location: Florida
23,154 posts, read 26,038,809 times
Reputation: 27882

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Other than hope everybody realizes you did not send it, do you just cringe and let it go or do you contact people, apologize and explain it wasn't you?
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Old 09-12-2015, 07:01 AM
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Location: Ohio
17,107 posts, read 37,941,720 times
Reputation: 14444
Before contacting those who received the spam, I hope you changed the password on your email account and scanned your computer for malware multiple times. That way, you can honestly tell all of the people you notify that you've taken steps to make sure it never happens again.
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Old 09-12-2015, 10:50 AM
 
Location: Florida
23,154 posts, read 26,038,809 times
Reputation: 27882
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bo View Post
Before contacting those who received the spam, I hope you changed the password on your email account and scanned your computer for malware multiple times. That way, you can honestly tell all of the people you notify that you've taken steps to make sure it never happens again.
How I wish that were true.
This latest one used a contact list with names that had been deleted months ago. It also had a slightly greyed out extra last name after my name.
If someone has a surefire way of preventing this, I love to hear it.
I do practice "safe" online use.
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Old 09-12-2015, 12:11 PM
 
41,815 posts, read 50,770,941 times
Reputation: 17862
Having someone break into you email account or obtaining your contact list is not normal if it happens once let alone multiple times.

Firstly are you using a strong password?

Secondly are you using different ones for different sites? What happens is this, a site like City Data for example is going to try and prevent people from breaking into their server. It's not a banking site so it's not going to be highly secure. If they hack into it they will take copy of the user table, the user table is going to contain your personal information and an encrypted password (this is why sites can't tell you what your password is). The encryption used is usually not that great because there is issues with server performance.

The first thing they will do is run a dictionary attack against it using the most commonly used passwords, this will net them about 10% of the users in the table literally in minutes. They may just stop there or continue with brute force attack to try and obtain the rest of them.

The end result is they now have an associated username, email address and password. Now they will go to your email account and try the password there. Perhaps from there they can see what bank you use and try the credentials there.

If you are not using a password manager get one. This will generate complex passwords and storebthem for you.

You only have to remember one and the file is local for this one anyway.
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Old 09-13-2015, 05:25 AM
 
Location: Florida
23,154 posts, read 26,038,809 times
Reputation: 27882
Quote:
Originally Posted by thecoalman View Post
Having someone break into you email account or obtaining your contact list is not normal if it happens once let alone multiple times.

Firstly are you using a strong password?



If you are not using a password manager get one. This will generate complex passwords and storebthem for you.

You only have to remember one and the file is local for this one anyway.
Thanks for that suggestion but I do use mixed up passwords and a different one for every site.
And this is only the 2nd time in 17 years with an outdated contact list at that.
I admit I do it the 'hard' way, with a notebook full of passwords.
May be wrong or illogical or even a bit paranoid but I'd rather not have such information on the computer.
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Old 09-13-2015, 07:04 AM
 
Location: Wartrace,TN
7,881 posts, read 12,589,105 times
Reputation: 16077
If you are using facebook that is the source of these emails. I had an issue with spam coming from people on my friends list that I have never communicated with using my e-mail account. I think facebook might have fixed the problem since I haven't seen any in a while.
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Old 09-13-2015, 10:41 AM
 
41,815 posts, read 50,770,941 times
Reputation: 17862
Quote:
Originally Posted by old_cold View Post
May be wrong or illogical or even a bit paranoid but I'd rather not have such information on the computer.
You are right to be paranoid about that, suppose someone steals your computer. The password database file is encrypted. The only time it can be read is when it's open, once opened by default it stays open as long as you are logged in. You can close it manually, set it to lock after X seconds, sleep mode etc. Shutting down the computer or loss of power obviously will close it too.
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