email virus WhatsApp - sending itself to all in my address book

Thank you Thomas.

Could you advise what to do when your Gmail contact list is hacked by the WhatsApp. Can you safely ignore it once it has sent messages to all persons on your Contact List if you are running IOS? Has Google given any advice?

See:

Someone is sending messages from my e-mail address!

(Fair disclosure: I may receive compensation from links to my sites, TheSafeMac.com and AdwareMedic.com.)

Thank you Thomas. That's very kind of you. And, thank you for responding so quickly

Paul

I had the same scenario take place for me this morning. The damaging email came from a client, and I was not scrutinizing my content properly before clicking, as it appeared to be a link to an audio message.

The site it redirects you to is hard to back out of before it does malicious stuff, as described by the others.

I changed my passwords and other Apple ID security stuff, which took a few minutes, and it seemed to have stopped it.

Now I just have to reply to the people who queried me on why I sent that bomb. Lesson learned.

I just had the same thing happen to me. It started sending emails as soon as it opened the page. Changing the password on my email and deleting and reloading my account seemed to stop it.

The phishing email arrived from a sender using an Apple MacBook, via her gmail account contacts, to my friend's ipad/yahoo account and to my email account at a small regional isp, which forwarded it to my email client (K9) on an android.

My friend on the ipad clicked the "whatsapp" image; he reports that a site opened regarding a game. Addresses in his yahoo account did not receive the phishing message, nor did addresses on his ipad email contact list.

Using my android and K9, I clicked the image and my firefox browser informed me that an attempt was being made to run Flash. I denied permission and closed the window. No addresses were spammed.

Today's news reports of Mac malware...designed to infect wealthier users in China.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2885126/equation-super-cyberspies-target-ma cs-with-malware-too.html

billygeen wrote:

Today's news reports of Mac malware...designed to infect wealthier users in China.

That has nothing to do with the phishing e-mail being discussed here. Further, most people will never have seen this... it involved very specifically targeted attacks against individuals, by intercepting mail and replacing CDs with tampered copies.

My partner got caught by this hack a couple of weeks ago and experienced the same scenarios ie entered password and then his entire contacts list were emailed the WhatsApp message. He has changed his password several times now but we both get a daily email saying that someone is attempting to log into his account. It happens in the early hours of the morning and the IP address is apparently in London. He has a gmail account and I'm his secondary email which is why I get messages too.

Is anyone else who clicked the WhatsApp link getting this problem? And does anyone know if there are other precautions he should take. Google's support page recommends changing the password but this would mean we had to change the password daily.

Thanks

It is time for Google to say what exactly they are doing to ensure that this doesn't happen again, what should be done by those people whose accounts have been compromised and why Gmail is so insecure.

pauldowning wrote:

It is time for Google to say what exactly they are doing to ensure that this doesn't happen again, what should be done by those people whose accounts have been compromised and why Gmail is so insecure.

GMail is not insecure. This is a phishing scam that involves people entering their password on a fake GMail login page. If you give away your GMail password to scammers, it's incredibly unfair to blame Google for the problem.

Thank you Thomas you were extremely helpful with your initial advice and very responsive.

You have been misinformed of the facts on which you have based your current answer.

You should know that at no time did I enter my password on a fake GMail login page. That would be incredibly naive.

I did not give way my Gmail password to scammers.

So my questions remain

1. What are Google doing to ensure that this doesn't happen again?

2. What should be done by those people whose accounts have been compromised?

3. Why was GMail hacked so easily?

It would be great to hear from Google who must be aware of this problem

paul

Hi Paul

Actually I think Thomas is correct. I had exactly the same experience but in my case it was Apple Mail not Gmail. i don't think this is a case of the email client being at fault. If we get an email and click on the enclosure then we are ultimately responsible for what then happens.

Thank you Lynjon1 for your opinion. Will you forgive me please for not responding on your opinion.

Are you able to help with my questions?

1. What are Google doing to ensure that this doesn't happen again?

2. What should be done by those people whose accounts have been compromised?

3. Why was GMail hacked so easily?

Paul this isn't a Gmail or Apple Mail problem and that is why they can't help. If they could there would be no phishing problems. Phishing can operate quite independently of whichever email system is being used.