Mac mail program hacked?

I'm surprised that nobody but one of the hosts has taken the time to answer you. Not my area of expertise, but I'll give you some ideas.

I've never run across any case of the Apple Mail application being used in this way without physical access to your computer over by controlling it remotely over a network. All a spammer really needs is your e-mail address (which I suppose is what the host removed for you) and he can send tons of e-mail out that appears to come from you, some of which doesn't go through and is bounced back to you.

The second biggest way this happens, as you have guessed, is to hack your e-mail account by guessing the password and using that to send spam. Depending on what your preferences are set to, you may be able to tell if this was done if the outgoing messages appear in your "Sent" folder. If you find such messages, you can be assured that they were sent using your e-mail account in some manner. If there you do save sent messages and there is no sign of them, then they are just using your e-mail address.

I am having the same problem as the op. beginning two days ago i started getting delay and failure notices for garbage messages, many with .ru addresses. Ordinarily i ignore the odd 'failure notice' but for the last several days that is all i have recieved on my .mac account. Worse, i just learned from a friend that two emails she sent me in the same time were returned to her undelivered. My gmail accounts seem to be unaffected.

There are no outgoing messages in my sent mail folder.

What exactly should i do? Can i save this account or do i have to shut it down and lose the .mac tag?

I should maybe mention that for the last 24 hours my computer has beenshut down and offline, but i am still recieving the delay and failure messages. The .mac account is the default send account on my ipad and iphone; can they be part of the problem?

xtopad wrote:

I am having the same problem as the op.

What exactly should i do?

Nothing you can do. They are simply using your e-mail address in the From: header. As long as there is nothing you did not send in your Sent folder, they are not using your account (or your computer) to send them.

Not sure why your friend was unable to send mail to you. Are you otherwise receiving e-mail to this account OK as near as you can tell?

Have any of the folks in your Contacts reported receiving Spam/Junk from you?

I have recieved nothing but failure notices over the last three days. I dont know of any contacts receiving spam, but i am not sure if i would know, since apparently i am not receiving mail through the account. My friend said the bounced emails to me said something about over limit. (i dont have the bounce emails to read myself) i have asked a couple of people who say they havent gotten anything unusual from my address.

Is there something i can request apple do to shut these people down so i can use my own account again?

I agree with MadMacs - someone got your email address by hacking into someone's online account (most likely) to steal email addresses - they are sold to mass marketers. I also get the "can't deliver" messages - they are simply using your stolen email address as a "from" address and sending SPAM to some invalid address. Just as a completely ridiculous example: I have a Yahoo account and that has been hacked into several times. I am now receiving SPAM emails from me to me!!

There isn't much you can do - they will continue to steal email addresses. Change your password often. I've actually reduced my address book entries to a minimum in Yahoo and make sure I do not have any personal info stored there besides the email address.

Okay, if theres nothing i can do, and no real damage to my computer or files, i guess thats it then.

Thanks for the help, both of you.

xtopad wrote:

My friend said the bounced emails to me said something about over limit. (i dont have the bounce emails to read myself) i have asked a couple of people who say they havent gotten anything unusual from my address.

Is there something i can request apple do to shut these people down so i can use my own account again?

Apple can't do anything about whoever is sending the messages out because they are not using your account to send anything.

It does sound like they may have locked your account for some reason. Perhaps you have exceeded your storage limits because of all the bounce messages? Make sure your junk/spam and trash folders are completely empty and that you are getting rid of those bounce message. If that doesn't do it you may have to either buy more storage or get rid of messages/attachments you no longer need.