computer virus

[fruitshootsandheaves]

So after all the other horrid stuff thats happened this week I have this morning found that my computer last night sent people in my email contacts a link to a viagra site!

I can't really send everyone an email apologising as they probably will have blocked me after the first email!

I can't think where I would have got this virus from as I have not opened any links

I just want to crawl away and hide till christmas

Don't know why I'm posting, for someone to make me feel better I think.

Are you sure that your computer sent any emails? The most common cause of spamming from your email address is actually that a email-contact of yours has an infection (either currently, or some time in the past) and your email address has been harvested from their contacts/address book. Spam emails are then forged to appear to have been sent by you, when really they have not originated from you at all.

If I got a VIAGRA email claiming to be from a friend I would assume that the From header was forged, unless I had a strong reason to believe otherwise.

It's probably not from your machine at all, but run a virus check and some spyware scans just in case. Malwarebytes and Spybot Search and Destroy are the most commonly recommended spyware scanners.

AVG is a good free virus checker...

And to echo those above, it is unlikely that your computer is the source of these emails.

Thanks for your replies. Have only just dared to come back on my computer today!
No more emails thank goodness.
lazydog someone else said that too on a techy forum but I couldn't understand how a virus from someone elses computer would send more than one email supposedly from me but not to random people they were all from people in my contacts, and they all appear in my sent box.

I am networks to several other computers on our home network. Al the techy people seem to think that this computer cannot be affected since it is a Macbook but i haven't been on any of the PC's (they all have anti virus and have all been scanned with nothing found)

Its all a bit worrying and is adding to my completely crappy week

But you have all made me feel a bit better so thankyou.

"and they all appear in my sent box"

Ah... That's a totally different matter. Yup - you did send them, sorry.

HOWEVER - what do you use to email? If you're talking about a web based mail, such as hotmail or gmail, then your computer could still be clean, and "just" your email account compromised.

"Al the techy people seem to think that this computer cannot be affected since it is a Macbook"

Certainly much less likely than if it were running Windows, but "cannot be affected"...? I think that's a very dangerous assumption, and one that will probably bite many Mac users on the bum once the virus writers decide to target more attention in that direction... Saying that - do try not to worry, as it is still very unlikely.

If you could get back to me with details of how you use email (i.e. messages stored locally on the Macbook, or via a webmail email account) then we can narrow it down. (And if you do use webmail - I'd advise changing your password.)

HTH!

thankyou lazydog

I do use webmail its just a standard aol email account

I have changed my password now, I have noticed that all the links appear to be different but I imagine they all link to fairly similar sites.

hope you are right. I don't seem to have had many irate emails from important contacts thank goodness!

Dh has bought antivirus software for my mac, against all the advice of the techies. Will be interesting to see if it comes up with anything when it arrives.