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

Scammers who orchestrate phishing attacks simply send out bulk emails to random email addresses, many of which are invalid. They start with aaaaaaa @gmail.com or something like that, then aaaaaab @gmail.com, all the way to zzzzzzz @gmail.com. You just got unlucky in that your address came up in one of the random character sequences they choose.

ah.... No, the original email came from my grandson. When checking the sent mail folder in my wifes Thunderbird (on her MAC as that is all she has) we could see everyone to whom an email was sent. She then phoned them and warned them all.

Then that is another common tactic they use - email spoofing. It is not hard to make an email appear like it came from another address. The other way to do it would be to guess your grandson's email password, either a lucky guess or by brute force (trying many passwords until they find the right one). Either way, it's not due to any kind of malware. Malware in this case would mean that something was installed on your system (or your grandson's, as the case may be) that gave them access to that email.

No. you are wrong. 100% wrong. Some of the people my wife phoned GOT the message. I could see in her sent mail that HER system sent it out. It is not spoofing. Trust me on this one.... You are just WRONG on the spoofing

They certainly managed to get access to thunderbird on my wifes computer somehow and my grandsons ipad and the fellows ipad who posted earlier this morning. And quite a few others if you care to do a few searches.

No, I don't see any reason to trust you on this one. I don't care who got the email. Please provide evidence that it was not spoofing.

James Mitchell1 wrote:

They certainly managed to get access to thunderbird on my wifes computer somehow

Nonsense. Prove it.

Certainly this manages to send itself NOT to people in your contacts but everyone you have sent emails to (at least recently) because I have been checked and people have had this that are not contacts of mine but who have had a recent email from me.

What is so innocuous is that you just think it was a link to a fake website and you take no further action, then this thing can take effect days later sending out copies.
I'm still worried despite changing passwords that I'm not rid of it because I think it is more malicious than people suspect.

Prove it? I already did. Did you not read anything I posted. I went through her sent mail folder and looked at the emails thundrbird sent out to all her friends. She then phoned those to whom emails were sent and some of them got the emails. The sent emails were and still are there in black and white. I need prove nothing to you.

actually sent out the same day. within minutes.. so WRONG AGAIN. These people are in the contacts. They were my wifes friends.

I did take action as soon as someone let her know he got the email from her. I went in and changed all the gmail passwords.

quit arguing in circles. you will only get dizzy

Ok, so...? Why does that mean that your computer got infected? All I need is your password, and then I can send emails from your account. Those emails would then show up in your Sent box. What on Earth does that have to do with your computer, iPad, etc.?

James Mitchell1 wrote:

They certainly managed to get access to thunderbird on my wifes computer somehow and my grandsons ipad and the fellows ipad who posted earlier this morning. And quite a few others if you care to do a few searches.

Why do you let others into your Macs, (because they did not do it from the outside)

James Mitchell1 wrote:

Prove it? I already did. Did you not read anything I posted. I went through her sent mail folder and looked at the emails thundrbird sent out to all her friends.

That proves her account was compromised, it says nothing about her Mac.

Any email sent by her account will be on the Mac (actually on the mail server which has a folder on the Mac)

let me rephrase that for you

SOMETHING had access, not someone, to her address book.

try actually reading what I posted.