HELP: I Think Someone Is Spamming Using My GMail???

12 years ago

art: the last time this happened to me i discovered i had a virus. so apparently, this is some sort of nasty little trick of gaining accesibility to your gmail address, and at the same time infecting your computer. at least, this is what i was told by two different sources. it boiled down to me opening an email from a friend who was also infected and clicking on a link. i changed my password and removed the virus and have not had any further issues since about a year ago when it happened.

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art72

12 years ago

Originally Posted by mattjay

art: the last time this happened to me i discovered i had a virus. so apparently, this is some sort of nasty little trick of gaining accesibility to your gmail address, and at the same time infecting your computer. at least, this is what i was told by two different sources. it boiled down to me opening an email from a friend who was also infected and clicking on a link. i changed my password and removed the virus and have not had any further issues since about a year ago when it happened.

I was hoping NOT to hear that actually. I am running a scan now, but I am nowhere near savvy when it comes to hunting down 'hidden' viruses in my computer.

Plus, I had just sent an email to all my personal contacts, warning them the emails were not from me, and not to open them as I don't know the nature of the contents. meanwhile, it gets me thinking; if my email is infected or my computer has a virus, I hope to God I didn't just spread it by warning all my contacts. That would suck!

Generally, I only open emails from trusted sources, and hadn't even opened or checked my 'personal' emails today. :confused:

Thanks... hopefully it's just a spammer with some skillz! -not a virus, but too early to tell, my computer seems fine.

I did add a plugin yesterday to 2 of my sites called "Slick Contact Forms" that added a small 'contact tab' on my sites. This is the only activity I can think of, whereby I used that email address and password! -gotta wonder, if that open-source resource, just became and open-sore resource?

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art72

12 years ago

UPDATE: I have since changed my password, and composed an email that I sent out to all my personal contacts. Another marketer/Warrior actually contacted me complimenting the site that was sent by the hacker, which is almost humorous.

However, he too mentioned it was likely a "keystroke" hacker, and suggested, I change any other accounts sharing that same password.

It's going to be a long night!

BEWARE Gmail users... who ever this is, sent nearly 400 emails out to my 'personal contacts' in roughly 35 minutes, before I caught it!

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baileybliss 12 years ago

keyloggers are a pain in the behind. you want to make sure that you get rid of it before you change any passwords, because anything you type will be logged anyhow and the hacker will still have access to your accounts. run a virus scan, and also check your running services when you ctrl+alt+delete to see if you can find it.

good luck!
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mattjay

12 years ago

hard to say. i'm sure some times they just hack the email address and send out spam, however when it happened to me they not only did that, but screwed with all types of files on my computer. i noticed it starting to act funny about two weeks after i changed my password and caught the email hack, then had it checked out and found the virus. i wish you the best of luck, this stuff can be a real pain in the a$$

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art72

12 years ago

I just looked at the source code of the page that was 'cloaked' in the link sent to my contacts.

**It looks like a legit CNBC news site, but at the bottom of the page I found a series of redirects that lead to the site...

com-featured[dot]us

This site displays the same CNBC site, so they were trying to mask their URL behind

www[dot]worldCNBC[dot]com/id/71827415 <-- affiliate owns com-featured[dot]us (*hacker)

Which I just did a whois search to find the persons name, address, home number, etc...

They are impersonating a CNBC site, so I'll be filing a complaint with GoDaddy shortly.

Still leaves me to wonder...what was the point?

All that work just to be an @$$hole!

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joseph7384

12 years ago

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art72

12 years ago

Originally Posted by joseph7384

This has happened to me twice in the last two weeks so after reading your post I set out to change my Gmail password but I can't seem to find where it is to change it.

As joseph7384 mentioned it's in settings...

Gear wheel top right corner in gmail, then "click" mail settings>accounts and import>1st tab is Change Password

Took me a minute to find it too

I am going to call over to GoDaddy in the morning and talk the guy that I get all my domain orders processed through, to find out what info they need to shut this pricks server down.

Not only did I see some 'undeliverable' message warnings, but every support ticket you can imagine sent me emails saying"Thank-You" your request ticket has been received, blah! blah! blah! -all containing the spammers 'masked' link.

So, it shouldn't be too hard to convince GoDaddy that I have proof it was sent from an idiot on their servers, ...they already have a copy of the email...

Plus, it amazed me this 'hacker' went through all this trouble to promote this fake CNBC website using a public domain... The main site that he was promoting belongs to another GoDaddy user under "Private" domain listing, that leads to an SEO service called aboutus[dot]com

Not sure, "if" the original site owner can get in trouble, but you can bet your ass I am gonna have the 'affiliate' that hacked my account shut down!

OK, I feel better now.

Good Night...

Art

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mattjay

12 years ago

there should be a little gear wheel on the top right of your screen. click on it and look for mail settings. then password.

hope it helps.
cheers

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TheHotChick

Banned 12 years ago

Thanks for this post, I'll keep it in mind. I never click on links anymore with so much of this going around. With my business facebook & twitter accounts I constantly get hit up with virus-ridden links from people who fell for the same trick. If it can happen to you it can happen to anybody. It's a good security measure to never use the same password twice... a good idea that I doubt many people actually follow.

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gaffg

12 years ago

changing your password works most of the time unless the virus that copied your login details is still on your computer.

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Paul200

12 years ago

Make sure you only change your password after you have scanned your computer and cleared your cache

If you havent got any scanners you can use malewarebytes and microsoft security essentials both are free and are not bad at picking up viruses

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Regional Warrior

12 years ago

Thsi is the 2nd one today I have found out about , another Warrior emailed me to be careful as some turd has hacked his main email sent out 800 or so emails

Sorry to hear this mate hope you get it fixed

Jason

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HELP: I Think Someone Is Spamming Using My GMail???

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