what can i do about these dodgy emails...

[Nicolaplus1]

a couple of times now ppl have said to me what is that email about that uve sent n not knowing what theyre talking about said send it back to me and it looks as though ive tried to send this random email about electrical products there is nthing in my sent items but in my inbox there are a couple of them delivery faliure things saying its failed sending this email t ppl that are in my contact list!

The last time it happened i also got one of these from my auntie!
I just delete them all butow ive just hd an email from another mnetter saying " i just rec'd this wierd email from u"???

Do i need to be worrid, what can i do??

Help am clueless bout techi stuff.

Might be a worm has invaded your email account ie has bypassed your password, changing your password to something that contains letters and numbers should cure it also add your own email to your address book so if anything like that is sent from your account you will receive a copy!

It need not be a worm or virus. It's incredibly easy for an email to fake the address of the person that sent it, there's quite literally no security or validation.

If you were to give me your email address within seconds I could send an email to anyone that appeared to come from you.

Why would spammers use your email address? Well it would look like a genuine email to someone that knows you, which is pretty useful.

How would spammers get your email address? Well they can just guess, but that they've also got your contact list suggests not. The most likely thing to have happened is that at some point you've been included in or sent one of those "If 50,000 people get this email I'll get in the book of records before I die" type of chain letters. Spammers will send out such things just to harvest proper and in use email addresses.

A quick check through the email will give someone who knows what they're looking for confirmation as to whether or not it really was sent from your account.

However changing your password is not a bad thing to do.

If you're using Windows I'd also run an up to date virus scan and check for Malware using something like the free version of Ad Aware (www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php)

If you're on a Mac then you don't need to worry about such things.

I get these from an old colleague - she was quite embarrassed about it but I realised it wasn't her fault.