e-mail address hijacked

**Grits** · 09-07-2008, 11:09 AM

All the contacts in my address book were sent an e-mail titled "a nice website" with a link. After sending it, the contents of my address book were wiped out

I have e-mailed everyone to let them know it was a hijack. One person so far e-mailed me to THANK ME FOR THE LINK! I warned her about what had happened and advised copying her address book immediately. Apparently, it looks legit. when you click on it. Everyone else could tell from the spelling and grammar that it wasn't really from me.

I have contacted Yahoo customer service who advised me to call yahoo account authorization, which is only open on weekdays, and to change my password.

I have a Mac and have never had to worry about viruses! What kind of scumbucket does this kind of thing? What do they get from it? I read the thread about the credit card number being stolen, which is worse than this. Be careful out there!

**Mr. Bloom** · 09-07-2008, 11:59 AM

Do you know what the link was? Sounds like others need to be on the lookout

**Grits** · 09-07-2008, 02:59 PM

The whole message was:

Dear friend,
Hope you everything goes well. I find a good company to buy electronic products recently.Now it is under sales promotion.They provide the attractive service and price to customers, It is realy a good chance for shopping, you can have a look their web if you like, and you will find more surprising. its website is www.bailecn.com .
Sincerely yours!

I can't believe ANYONE thought I would actually send anything like this!
There is a gov't website to report fraudulent e-mails to, so I am going to send it to them to check out: uec@ftc.gov

**Crankin** · 09-07-2008, 04:20 PM

Grits, I have had a Mac for six years and just recently, I got a virus on my IBook. It was a fake link for something, don't remember what, but I could not get rid of it. I downloaded some Norton anti-virus software, which promptly cured it.
I hope this was a one time thing.

**pardes** · 09-07-2008, 04:29 PM

I use McAfee, Windows fire wall, AND run CCCleaner every few days and a few sneaky thing still find their way through. So far I've been able to deal with most of them when things start going wonky on the computer but it keeps me on my toes.

**liberty** · 09-07-2008, 06:27 PM

I had the EXACT same thing happen to me today. Yahoo account. Same title and message. And it deleted my entire address book. At first I thought I had clicked on some link I shouldn't have... And the interesting thing is this all happened while my account was shut down. I was online but did not have my email open. My dad (my personal computer genius

) said someone must have hacked into Yahoo. I will go ahead and change my password too. That'll be a transition, since I've had the same one for 7+ years.

I did a Housecall scan on my computer and it came up with only a few cookies, but nothing wacky. Dad has a pretty stringent firewall set up and does intense, frequent maintenance on the computers; his last maintenance session was just last week. Keep us posted on what Yahoo says happened. My brother also has a Yahoo account, but nothing weird happened to his.

**songlady** · 09-08-2008, 10:17 AM

It just happend to my yahoo account this afternoon.

**Grits** · 09-08-2008, 10:21 AM

Back up or at least copy your address book, just in case!

**bouncybouncy** · 09-08-2008, 11:19 AM

Thank you Thank you Thank you for the heads up!!! I am a yahoo'r...nothing yet on mine but I did change my password to a nice strong one! and backed up my address book...

I never open unknown emails...maybe that helps

hope you all get your info back and nothing worse...

**maillotpois** · 09-08-2008, 12:20 PM

I just got an email from Yellow to my non-Yahoo email address with this message/link. I deleted it - is that enough?

**AuntieK** · 09-08-2008, 12:24 PM

Originally Posted by maillotpois

I just got an email from Yellow to my non-Yahoo email address with this message/link. I deleted it - is that enough?

Me too! I'll PM Yellow to let her know she should check her computer.

I hope deleting it is enough! I copied all my addresses just to be safe.

Thanks for the heads up on this one, Ladies!

**maillotpois** · 09-08-2008, 12:27 PM

We already told her.

**SadieKate** · 09-08-2008, 12:34 PM

I just called her cell and work phones and left a voice mail message. No answer at home but I think she's actually working on a Monday (probably scoring points for ski season).

**Lifesgreat** · 09-08-2008, 01:04 PM

Yellow's computer is a busy little bee. It sent an email to me too.

**sundial** · 09-08-2008, 01:06 PM

Yeah, my addresses are toast.

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