It appears that some of us may have had their emails hacked or something like that. I have received no less than six in the last 24 hours from either Ducatisti members or Ducati Forum members....probably the former, because one person is not currently a member of Ducati Forum. The emails are sent to multiple persons and have a URL link for people to click on.....don't, just delete them. It looks as though whatever/whoever is grabbing the complete Contacts and/or address book and then creating multiple emails from that which don't appear to show as 'Sent' items. AL.
I have seen this sort of thing before, but about two years ago....... If the URL link is clicked on, it will cause one of those 'Your PC is infected and is about to be scanned' dialogue boxes to appear......If you don't disable your internet connection immediately, it starts to take over the PC very quickly, so you can't shut down......It even removes the System Restore facility.....it can also infect the BIOS. Hopefully, one of those who sent the email to me will explain a bit more what they had happen at their end. AL.
Must be a lot of it about at the moment - I had loads of calls yesterdays from friends, family and clients - apparently an old freeserve email i had a long time ago, has been hacked and is now spamming people with ads for viagra! Tried to log in, but the gits have changed the password for the account - Rang Orange India who were flipping useless - they say its not possible as the account is not active.... they are investigating but its going to take them a week....
Similar has happened to a couple of friends with Hotmail accounts that were hacked into. Spam was sent to all of their contacts. The fix was a scan with a decent/up to date antivirus package & a change of password for their Hotmail accounts.
Got this from a friend, worth taking seriously............ PASS THIS ON! * * *IF A PERSON CALLED SIMON ASHTON ([email protected]) CONTACTS YOU THROUGH EMAIL DON'T OPEN THE MESSAGE. DELETE IT* BECAUSE HE IS A HACKER!! TELL EVERYONE ON YOUR* LIST** BECAUSE IF SOMEBODY ON YOUR LIST ADDS* HIM* THEN YOU WILL GET HIM ON YOUR LIST. HE WILL FIGURE* OUT YOUR ID COMPUTER ADDRESS, SO COPY AND PASTE THIS MESSAGE* TO EVERYONE EVEN IF YOU DON'T CARE FOR THEM AND FAST BECAUSE* IF HE HACKS THEIR EMAIL HE HACKS YOUR MAIL TOO!!!!!..... ALSO Anyone-using* Internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on..** This information arrived this morning, Direct from both* Microsoft and Norton. Please send it to everybody you know who* has access to the Internet. You may receive an apparently* harmless e-mail titled* 'Mail Server Report' If you open either file, a message will appear on* your screen saying:* 'It is too late now, your life is no* longer* beautiful.' Subsequently you will* LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC, And the person who o* sent it to you will gain access to your* name, e-mail and* password. This is a new virus which started to* circulate on Saturday afternoon.. AOL has already confirmed the* severity, and the* anti virus software's are not* capable of destroying it . The virus has* been created by a hacker who calls himself* 'life* owner'.. PLEASE SEND A COPY OF THIS E-MAIL TO* ALL YOUR FRIENDS, And ask them to*PASS* IT ON IMMEDIATELY!*
An old hoax: Is the virus warning about a hacker called Simon Ashton real? | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Luckily I don't maintain an address book or contacts folder............ I don't know if it will save me from a nasty b*****d but when I first load Outlook 2003 on the PC, I set up the first email account, then whizz through Settings to the Junk email Options...... .........In that there are Safe Senders and Blocked Senders lists............I import the files which are Notepad.text files, kept on a disc. Outlook is set also automatically adds people I email to the Safe Senders list. I also make sure the Auto-Complete file is up to date (but it automatically adds people I email to the file). So in theory it might be quite hard for someone to hack all my addresses...........and, I run Hotmail through Outlook, but if I go to Hotmail 'proper' and log-on, there is a Contacts list with no entries.....because I deleted all of them. AL.
My hotmail has been hacked in the recent pass. I was told change my password and that's all you can do. I saw one of the hacked emails, it obviously showed me as the sender so people trusted it; but, it did not have anything in the 'subject' area. The url apparently took the receiver to a shopping site, so it was fairly harmless. Rule of thumb, don't open any attachments received in email.....
