stag Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Hello- I have sent this to google but thought i would try and get someones opinion here... I use gmail and just recieved an email from some random person purporting that they are getting spam mail from me. They even went as far as detailing the rubbish sent with an exe (im at work so was able to view it). First thing, I havent sent any mail whatsoever to this person and any other which is spam. Second, my sent mail does not show anything which suggests activity. Can someone tell me what on earth is going on here? Is my computer been hijacked (i use a mac at home and PC at work), or are spammers using my mail address without sending it from my actual mail address? Arahhhh And while im at it, i have the mac firewall enabled but are there any other security precautions I should take either free or paid for software? Please help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farelf Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 ...Can someone tell me what on earth is going on here? Is my computer been hijacked (i use a mac at home and PC at work), or are spammers using my mail address without sending it from my actual mail address? Arahhhh...99.9% chance it's the second. Loads of cases reported here - here's a fairly recent one http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9037 You should also look at Why am I getting all these bounces?, Misdirected Bounce and Spammer Forgery of the From Address. Security? Well, the firewall is good but maybe another Mac user can comment on other measures. Ages since I used a Mac and it was a whole different world then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rconner Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 And while im at it, i have the mac firewall enabled but are there any other security precautions I should take either free or paid for software? More than likely as Farelf and the references he quotes indicate, your address was probably simply "borrowed" by the spammer, and so it is reasonable to assume that no access to your machines was involved. Still, it is right to be concerned. Mac OS X is fairly well protected out of the box. You should make sure that you are up to date with your security patches from Apple. Also, you should turn off access to any kind of sharing, web service, FTP service, etc. if you have turned them on (these are turned off by default), this will plug most holes in your network access. Unless you are concerned about specific threats, this may be all you need to worry about for the moment. I'm a Mac user, and I have not as yet opted for any anti-virus, adware-hunting, or similar programs since these problems are very thin on the ground in Mac land. This doesn't mean that you don't have to exercise common sense about what you do online, however, particularly if you open things up that Apple intended to remain shut. On the other hand, "I am not a doctor." -- rick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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