09-12-2010, 10:53 AM

We are a family of PC/Windows users; and my daughter's college major required us to purchase a Macbook Pro, which we purchased in July. My Mac experience is limited, yet because I'm the most well-versed PC's/Windows user in the family and because I'm the only one with any Mac experience, I'm also responsible for my daughter's Mac-- at least until she gets up to speed.

My daughter uses Yahoo for email, running entirely off the cloud (e.g. she uses no client residing on her machine). Her Mac OS is Snowleopard, which came with the Macbook Pro. I did not load any version of Windows on the Mac. She only has the software that came with the machine (all the "I-" stuff), and Adobe Suite and Microsoft Office, which I purchased. As far as the internet is concerned, she also participates on Facebook and plays some internet-based games, though I doubt she has had time to play any games since mid-August when she left for college. Anyway, call it what you want, but my daughter is unknowingly emailing links to all of the addresses in her Yahoo address book. We have received it twice in the last 24-hours.

My daughter is 4.5 hours away at college; and I need to figure out how to remove this "problem" and find the best way to keep things like this from happening in the future. I realize she needs to be careful on what she clicks; and she is careful for the most part. However, she is an eighteen year-old college student and is sometimes going to click before she thinks. Her computer being compromised from now on because she made a mistake is not a viable solution. I realize this post is somewhat similar to the pinned thread, but I wanted to be specific with my situation, hoping to receive a specific solution(s).

09-12-2010, 11:36 AM

Try changing the password to numbers and letters and make it a lot of characters also you may find Mac Mail works better for you.

09-12-2010, 12:09 PM

Yep, change the password on the yahoo account as it is quite likely her email account has been hacked. This is becoming very common with weak passwords across yahoo, hotmail, and gmail. As has been suggested use a combination of numbers and letters with a Cap or 2 thrown in.

There are no virii/malware in the wild that will run in OS X at this time. There are no "drive by" infections that will run in OS X either. There are a couple of trojans in the wild that can affect OS X and are only accessible via downloading illegal software packages (which she wouldn't need since she already has the software in question pre-installed for free on her machine) and certain porn sites that request you download video codecs.

I do not, nor have I ever run any A/V on my Macs and personally advise against it as we see many more issues surrounding them than we see of those that have been affected by one of the trojans out there. To be on the safe side you could have her install ClamXav (free) and run it once a week. This would help prevent her from forwarding emails that may be infected with Windows malware her friends have sent her that would not affect her Mac. (Although, not really a concern if she's using the cloud and not using the Mail app.)

Lastly, make sure she understands that she should never put in her admin password unless she knows what and why something is asking for it.

09-12-2010, 01:16 PM

Thanks folks. I'll have her change the password. My thought was that this was launching when she went in to check her emails, which made me think it might reside on her machine and was either running continuously, succeeding only when she was logged into her Yahoo account, or that it was being triggered by her logging into her Yahoo account or clicking on her inbox or something like that. Hopefully you are right... it is merely a hack into the account itself and has nothing to do with what resides on her harddrive. If the problem persists, I'll let you know. I'll also find ClamXav and get her to download and run weekly.

Thanks again!!!

09-12-2010, 02:08 PM

Originally Posted by jcjrogers

Hopefully you are right...

Not to sound arrogant but there is no "hopefully" about it. It's an e-mail thing. Not a virus/malware thing. There are none for Mac OS X.
I'm just trying to make it clear, not trying to rub it in.

09-12-2010, 02:22 PM

If you want to check her machine install teamviewer - you can remote into her machine from your machine
TeamViewer - Free Remote Access and Remote Desktop Sharing over the Internet

You may want to check for a keylogger - In college I have had friends get hacked because of keyloggers. The other way - is if they used a friend's computer to login and check sites - their "friends" could have been running keyloggers to capture her password.

09-12-2010, 09:52 PM

It's worth mentioning that it's also ENTIRELY possible that she is not, in fact, the source of these emails. If they're not in her outbox, she's DEFINITELY not the source.

What could be happening is that a PC user with her email address in their address book may be infected, and the emails are actually coming from THEM but with her email as the sender. This is how PC viruses spread.

09-12-2010, 10:52 PM

Originally Posted by jcjrogers

My daughter is 4.5 hours away at college; and I need to figure out how to remove this "problem" and find the best way to keep things like this from happening in the future. I realize she needs to be careful on what she clicks; and she is careful for the most part. However, she is an eighteen year-old college student and is sometimes going to click before she thinks. Her computer being compromised from now on because she made a mistake is not a viable solution. I realize this post is somewhat similar to the pinned thread, but I wanted to be specific with my situation, hoping to receive a specific solution(s).

This is the beauty of Mac. If she manages to get the ONE wild Trojan out there for the Mac, you know someone is using her Mac to look at some pretty..uh..."interesting stuff". Otherwise she can pretty much do what she wants without worrying about anything.

As the father of one daughter sort of in College and another headed that way, this is one of those "College Freedoms" that YOU don't have to worry about....