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cgr1950
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Someone has unauthorised use of my contacts for spam emails. How do I identify who is doing this?

Someone has accessed my contacts list and sent them spam email from an address purprting to be me. How do I stop this?

iPad mini Wi-Fi

Posted on Nov 3, 2015 5:55 PM

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cgr1950

Q: Someone has unauthorised use of my contacts for spam emails. How do I identify who is doing this?

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  • by Duane,

    Duane Duane Nov 3, 2015 6:59 PM in response to cgr1950
    Level 10 (124,018 points)
    Nov 3, 2015 6:59 PM in response to cgr1950

    If they have your contact list there is no way you can stop them from sending emails.

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,Helpful

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Nov 3, 2015 10:52 PM in response to cgr1950
    Level 9 (60,617 points)
    Desktops
    Nov 3, 2015 10:52 PM in response to cgr1950

    This is not necessarily a problem on your computer.

     

    The same symptom can be caused by having a different computer, belong to someone with whom you corresponded (and are therefore entered in their email directory) be compromised. The spammer simply runs the list of contacts and fakes them as email "senders". There is no need for it to literally come from your computer.

     

    I had this happen to me when an eBay trading partner had their computer compromised, and it certainly was creepy.

     

    If you can get someone to forward the email with headers intact (or examine the Headers) you can see where the email actually came from, but it usually takes a programmer-type to do this, and often forwarding strips off the Full headers of the original sender.