Ask a New Question

Posted by Anonymous - How Did They Get My Contacts Lists? Email Spam? : My email is sending out spam emails but I didnt do it.  How did they get my email contacts list?  The emails went to everyone in my contacts and there is definitely no virus on my computer.

Anonymous Says: They would have most likely hacked the email server.  Emails servers are notoriously bad for getting hacked (although better).  Keep in mind your contacts are on the email server because using webmail all that stuff is stored remotely.  If you were using only email on your computer and not webmail, then this most likely wouldn't happen.

Anonymous Says: With email contact lists all stored on servers, this is a common thing today where people think its malware on computer but its not.   How do you stop it?  You really dont, you can change your password but that may or may not stop it.  Note that some webmail is far worse then others for getting hacked. Hotmail and yahoo emails were often the worst webmails from what i've seen, other webmails seemed to happen like aol webmail and gmail.

Anonymous Says: One thing you can do to help is NEVER use main your email for messageboards, online ordering, and stuff like that! Signup for a 2ND email for that!  Then any malware will often be on that one which you never use anyways, you only use that for confirming your order deliveries or non essential stuff like that.  Your main email is kept private, it will definitely help but server getting hacked wont make it 100% of course, just much better.

Anonymous Says: This is similiar to what computer virus did years ago. A virus would get installed on your computer and read your contacts list and send out email spam to everyone. Now that webmail stores everything remotely, its the same thing except it doesn't need to be on your computer to get your email contacts. Even though it obviously looks like spam, the best thing is educate people not to click wierd links and other email links being sent out.

Add your reply below ...

See All Questions