Advice needed, email was possibly hacked, getting TONS of spam

[Disneyplanners]

This afternoon my email started receiving thousands of emails, all from different email address, but the sender is named as a number. I use outlook for my email, and would like to be able to keep this address as I've had it a long time. I can't figure out how to get the emails to stop coming. I've called the outlook/hotmail customer service, but they will not help because I don't have a paid account. I've sent tech support a message, but no response yet. Any suggestions on what I should do? I can't block because the sender's email is always different. Help!

 

[Gracie09]

Start by changing your passwords

 

[Shanna-like-Banana]

ditto, change your passwords

hope it stops soon

 

[Albort]

turn on the 2 part authenticator too.

 

[Debbie7452]

I would also delete your contact list (you could print it out first). Sometimes whoever hacked you will send emails to all your contacts that look like they're from you.

 

[Disneyplanners]

Thanks for your replies. I changed my password right after I saw it was happening, and it didn't stop the emails. They did stop at some point this afternoon and I'm deleting them now. Also, got a call from discover card today for fraudulent activity. Someone was able to get into my account on bestbuy, changed my address and tried to purchase an apple computer. I wonder if I was getting the mass emails so that I wouldn't get the order confirmation. Luckily the order the flagged and cancelled.

This has happened on my walmart account twice also. (Not the email thing, but an expensive order.) What could I be doing wrong that I am making my accounts vulnerable?

 

[gunner2010]

might have a keylogger on your system. Hard to say what you did "wrong" when there are a ton of variables.

you the only one that ever uses the computer?

 

[DebbieB]

You may want to try to do a restore. I downloaded a program to watch a TV show I missed and all the sudden I was getting a ton of popups. I tried to delete the program but there were files everywhere. I did a restore about 3 days back (before I installed the program) and it stopped.

 

[cglaura]

It could be someone spoofed your email address as the "reply to" address on their mass spam sending. Thus you are getting all the bounce backs for spam that was sent to undeliverable/closed addresses.

Changing your password is good, but when someone does this they don't need your password, just your email address. It stinks.

Also be sure to not log into anything over free Wi-Fi and make sure all your accounts use different passwords and those passwords are a mix of letters/numbers/symbols. Like really random ones not including anything personal about you Ex: 55$foggyrainyday74=$!

 

[sbtrfly74]

You can also add XXX in front of all your contacts instead of deleting them, but when you actually need to send an email you will need to remove them.

I get spam that looks more like a company bought my email from a list. They all have the same subject line but different senders and arrive at the same time. I just send all of them to spam.

 

[Thetechguy4you]

You might have a virus as well. Do you have someone local that can look at it? Also what OS do you have?

 

[Disneyplanners]

Thanks again for the replies and advice. Going to change all my passwords today and remove any saved credit card info.

You might have a virus as well. Do you have someone local that can look at it? Also what OS do you have?

We have two computers and I use both, one Windows 7, the other Windows 8.

 

[lucky978]

The fraudulent activity and the spam emails are most likely related. Same thing happened to me. One morning I checked my email and had thousands of span emails. Hidden in one was an email alert from PayPal notifiying me of a payment (which I had not authorized). I think it's done on purpose so you don't pay attention and just delete them all without noticing one has to do with a payment. I was lucky to catch mine soon enough.

 

[LilyWDW]

Download Avast or Microsoft Security Essentials. These are free antivirus programs and they are updated and work MUCH better then Norton or McAfee.

Run these programs.

Install Ad-Aware. This is not only an antivirus program, but also antispyware and antimalware.

Run this program.

Hopefully at this point your computer should be "safe". Change all your passwords to accounts that may have access to financial information. Do NOT do this until you know your computer is safe because if you have a virus or keylogger, they now have the new information if the item is still there.

 

[tvguy]

Every e-mail address is, in reality a number.

Your domain ( G-MAIL, YAHOO, AOL) is a known number. Spammers use number generators to flood domains with every possible number combination to find actual email addresses at a domain. If they get a reply, they know they have found a valid email address through it's number combination. So don't reply. No reply, they move on.
While a virus is possible, it isn't likely, nor is it very likely anyone has your password. Just don't reply, delete them, and they should stop.

 

[jsmith]

The actual most likely scenario is what tvguy said or your email provider has a replicator virus on one or more of their servers-basically that is one gets into someones contact list-sends itself to all the contacts in that list-and so on and so on-yahoo gets them rather frequently-it doesn't mean your email was hacked-most hackers don't waste time hacking emails-they spoof addresses and replicate to the contact list instead-less work with more return. I generally ignore them but occasionally I get them from the account of a friend of my husbands who was killed in Iraq in 2005-thats a bit unnerving. Basically, delete the emails and ignore the problem and it will go away.

 

[LilyWDW]

While it is most likely just an email thing, it is NEVER a bad idea to have a good anti virus and run it and Ad-Aware just to be on the safe side. In fact, you should be running these things on a regular basis.

However, it could be something else as well. So is it not better to be safe, run the programs, and change the passwords once they know the computer is clean? Maybe I am a bit more careful about these things since I have had friends have accounts hacked and what not.

 

[Thetechguy4you]

If you need help let me know. I can check it out!!!

 

[njmom47]

Could your email be one on the list for this Heartbleed virus?
http://mashable.com/2014/04/09/heartbleed-bug-websites-affected/