Internet Virus

[DSJ]

I received an urgent text message from a friend last evening. He said that someone had hacked into his e-mail to send out a virus. He warned me not to open any e-mails I might receive from him. He said that he had reported the problem and that he would be changing his address.

At that stage, I had not received e-mails from my friend but later on I saw that there were two from him in my box. I deleted them without opening them.

Does anyone know how this happens and how a person would know that it had happened so that they could warn their contacts?

[jake-the-peg]

You don't know Tamirra by any chance do you?

http://www.theanswerb...k/Question945334.html

[squarebear]

He needs to change his email password.

[jake-the-peg]

Some viruses spread by E-mail

Melissa was the first other notable examples include my personal favourite "I love you".

Victims would get a mail from someone they knew with the subject line "I love you"

They'd open it ( well you would wouldn't you ?) which would activate the virus which would then send a copy of itself to everybody in the victim's address book.

This was 10 years ago this sort of virus is rarer these days, nowadays it's more likely to be password stealing trojans or websites that tell you you have a virus and try to get you to pay money to remove the non-existant infection, or worse infections that they download themselves

[flobadob]

Yes it's happened recently to me from two of my friends. I always assume it is fake if the subject line says "No Subject" and just immediately delete them. If you open them they show you a link and it's if you click on the link that the problems start.

[DSJ]

Sorry, I don't know Tamirra. Who is she?

The two e-mails last evening had 'No Subject' in the title box but how would my friend have known that there was a problem in order to warn his friends?

This sort of thing really scares me.

[squarebear]

because people will have replied and ask what he sent. He didn't send anything and so sent a message to his contacts. Nothing to be scared of.

[sweety8786]

some viruses are crazy ! change the email password and you can get information from here
http://www.spywareviruscleaner.com
Try it !

[DSJ]

Thanks for that.

[squarebear]

I wouldn't click on that link. It appears to be a virus site in itself that sweety8786 promotes in all of their answers.

[DSJ]

OK, thank you for that Squarebear. Luckily I hadn't followed it up.