Jobs & Education1 min ago
dodgy angelina jolie email equals virus?
19 Answers
Today I received an email from myself or rather from my own email address. The subject was an offer to purchase a dodgy video featuring Angelina Jolie. Really freaked me out. (The sender address, not the video!)
My question is, does this necessarily mean that I have a virus "inside my email" if you see what I mean.
(And if so, does it thereby follow that people I know will also be getting Angelina emails from me...)
I have never posted the email address in question on the internet but I have of course used it when signing up to different sites (no dodgy ones). Only yesterday I used it for getting a free Flickr account. But I checked the security settings of that account immediately and chose to let my email address remain invisible. If memory serves invisibility was the default setting, so I don't believe my email address could have been "out there" even for a second.
Additional info: The spam mail was written i English, but the email address in question is one I use almost exclusively for writing in Swedish.
My question is, does this necessarily mean that I have a virus "inside my email" if you see what I mean.
(And if so, does it thereby follow that people I know will also be getting Angelina emails from me...)
I have never posted the email address in question on the internet but I have of course used it when signing up to different sites (no dodgy ones). Only yesterday I used it for getting a free Flickr account. But I checked the security settings of that account immediately and chose to let my email address remain invisible. If memory serves invisibility was the default setting, so I don't believe my email address could have been "out there" even for a second.
Additional info: The spam mail was written i English, but the email address in question is one I use almost exclusively for writing in Swedish.
Answers
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.Really...? Hackers aren't any smarter than that?! Not saying you're wrong, Ethel, I'm just expressing great surprise. Too late now though, I deleted it after having read Jillius' reply...
But let's say the same thing happens tomorrow and I do have a look, I'm still not sure what you're saying I should do in order to conclude whether I have a virus "inside my email" (see original question) or not?
And I didn't think you were supposed to open dodgy emails at all - much less click on attachments of course, but I thought you shouldn't even open the email? Right? Wrong?
But let's say the same thing happens tomorrow and I do have a look, I'm still not sure what you're saying I should do in order to conclude whether I have a virus "inside my email" (see original question) or not?
And I didn't think you were supposed to open dodgy emails at all - much less click on attachments of course, but I thought you shouldn't even open the email? Right? Wrong?
To find the sender of an email, firstly follow this link.
http://www.ip-adress.com/faq/view_email_header /
Then paste the details on this page to find the sender.
http://www.ip-adress.com/trace_email/
http://www.ip-adress.com/faq/view_email_header /
Then paste the details on this page to find the sender.
http://www.ip-adress.com/trace_email/
Imagine I sent you, not an e-mail, but a normal letter, and on the back I wrote "From:" followed by your address. On receiving it and seeing that it purported to come from your address, would you think "Arrggghhh, there's a ghost in nt house sending letters to me!" or would you think "Some little liar's pretending that I sent this to myself"?
rojash I'll have to agree with Jillius that is not a valid analogy but if it was indeed meant to reassure me then thank you. Thanks squarebear. I do know not to click on the attachments and I haven't done that. Know for a fact there were attacks from my computer/IP-address a while back (as I received angry letters from my broadband supplier about it - even though I subscribe to their anti-virus and firewall services!) so I'm really just trying to figure out what's going on. I've spent the better part of the day on the phone with them so I'm hoping it's all sorted now. Thanks guys.
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