Spam Emails

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I am still pretty new to a Mac and have had a bad experience with either some virus or a hacker. Here is what is happening. Someone/something is sending out email advertizing a Canadian pharmacy. These emails have my address as the sender. I use MSN hotmail and my browser is Firefox. My wife uses this same computer and she uses Safari and also MSN hotmail.. She has not had this problem. Can anyone tell me how I can stop this crap? I am embarrassed that these emails are going out with my name on them. I have advised all my friends that I am not doing this. My brother in law had the same thing happen to him about a year ago and he is on a PC and using SBCGLOBAL email service and Internet Explorer. Can you help? Thanks
 
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It never hurts to have an AntiVirus app running on your machine. Regardless of the fact that it's a mac, it's not bulletproof. Since there are awesome free A/V apps still out there, my personal suggestion in Sophos. I use it on my mac and we use it on our macs as work (the enterprise version, however).
 
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Two things,
Your email account on MSN got hacked, or somebody is "spoofing" faking your email and sending the spam that way (This has happened to me already)
E-mail spoofing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So change the password of your email account on MSN, and then see what happens.

And if you don't do shady things on the internet, or open downloads you don't remember downloading you have no Mac virus. You may have a couple of .exe viruses but they don't work on Mac.
 
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It never hurts to have an AntiVirus app running on your machine. Regardless of the fact that it's a mac, it's not bulletproof. Since there are awesome free A/V apps still out there, my personal suggestion in Sophos. I use it on my mac and we use it on our macs as work (the enterprise version, however).

As it's not a virus , Anti virus won't help and in any event would simply clog up resources unnecessarily. It's your MSN account that has been attacked NOT yor mac so rest easy. Change you MSN password and all will be fine. You COULD advise Microsoft so that they can add one to the number of people who have experienced this.
 
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Thanks guys for your answers. I suspected that it was my MSN account that was hacked and the contacts were not gotten from my Mac. I will change my password and see it that will stop future junk emails appearing to be sent by my account. I contacted MSN and you are right. They added me to the long list but are not inclined to do anything about blocking hackers. Thanks again. Going right now to change my password.
 
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99% of the time your account was not hacked, they are simply using your email address as their "from" address, no hacking or anything special required. I could actually do it right now.

Best thing would be to paste some of the original message headers here if you can get them, and we can look. Most likely what you'll see is that the message is not originating at all from MSN and they're just most likely using your email address.

The way to stop that would be to contact the relay ISP, not MSN as they can't actually do anything about it.
 
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chas_m

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It never hurts to have an AntiVirus app running on your machine. Regardless of the fact that it's a mac, it's not bulletproof. Since there are awesome free A/V apps still out there, my personal suggestion in Sophos. I use it on my mac and we use it on our macs as work (the enterprise version, however).

This is so full of wrong I hardly know where to begin.

First, yes it DOES hurt to have an antivirus on your Mac, since there ARE NO MAC VIRUSES.

AntiVirus programs steal resources that are being wasted uselessly, since there ARE NO MAC VIRUSES.

Second of all, YES IT IS TOO BULLETPROOF. As in you aren't going to get a Mac virus, because THERE ARE NO MAC VIRUSES. Sorry, but this point has been repeated (and repeatedly proven) about 10,000 times on this forum alone and yet there are still people like you that don't seem to get it. Hopefully this will help you get it.

There are some "malwares" out there that are looking to scam you, but they are just variants on all the other scareware/trickware scams out there, none of which are platform-specific. They aren't viruses, because words mean things, and they aren't viruses. No Mac "anti-virus" is going to protect you from stuff like that Nigerian prince who wants to give you money, and Apple has already patched the MacDefender trickware, so an anti-virus is IMHO a complete waste of time, money and resources.

Third, Sophos isn't free. Maybe they make a good-for-nothing free trial version, but the only free A/V program for Mac is ClamXAV, and it only exists because there are Windows viruses you could inadvertently pass on to Windows users.
 
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This is so full of wrong I hardly know where to begin.

First, yes it DOES hurt to have an antivirus on your Mac, since there ARE NO MAC VIRUSES.

AntiVirus programs steal resources that are being wasted uselessly, since there ARE NO MAC VIRUSES.

Second of all, YES IT IS TOO BULLETPROOF. As in you aren't going to get a Mac virus, because THERE ARE NO MAC VIRUSES. Sorry, but this point has been repeated (and repeatedly proven) about 10,000 times on this forum alone and yet there are still people like you that don't seem to get it. Hopefully this will help you get it.

There are some "malwares" out there that are looking to scam you, but they are just variants on all the other scareware/trickware scams out there, none of which are platform-specific. They aren't viruses, because words mean things, and they aren't viruses. No Mac "anti-virus" is going to protect you from stuff like that Nigerian prince who wants to give you money, and Apple has already patched the MacDefender trickware, so an anti-virus is IMHO a complete waste of time, money and resources.

Third, Sophos isn't free. Maybe they make a good-for-nothing free trial version, but the only free A/V program for Mac is ClamXAV, and it only exists because there are Windows viruses you could inadvertently pass on to Windows users.

'Macs don't get viruses' myth dissolves before public's eyes

Macs no longer immune to viruses - Technology & science - Security - msnbc.com

Apple Quietly Admits Macs Get Viruses

Free Antivirus for Mac - Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition

I'm starting to think I made a mistake joining this forum. Looks like y'all are in the denial camp.
 
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chas_m

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Okay, let's make this easy for you.

Send me those Mac viruses. Send em all to me. I'll **PAY YOU** $100 for every Mac virus you send me.

I'm completely serious, PM me your email and I'll respond with mine. I **REALLY** look forward to seeing these Mac viruses, I'm sure you can find them with a simple google search.

Or maybe you'll find out that none of the articles you quoted are actually true. Nah, I'm sure the media could never be wrong, so just send those viruses along. Thanks.

PS. I'll be sure to keep the forum updated with your progress, so get going! Lots of viruses to send me!
 

chscag

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Hey guys, let's be nice to one another. OK? Everyone who posts on these forums is entitled to his\her opinion.

If someone wishes to use AV software on their Mac, that's their choice. Let's let it go at that.

Thanks.
 
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I guess we'll just have to disagree on this one.
 
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vansmith

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This is so full of wrong I hardly know where to begin.

First, yes it DOES hurt to have an antivirus on your Mac, since there ARE NO MAC VIRUSES.

AntiVirus programs steal resources that are being wasted uselessly, since there ARE NO MAC VIRUSES.

Second of all, YES IT IS TOO BULLETPROOF. As in you aren't going to get a Mac virus, because THERE ARE NO MAC VIRUSES. Sorry, but this point has been repeated (and repeatedly proven) about 10,000 times on this forum alone and yet there are still people like you that don't seem to get it. Hopefully this will help you get it.

There are some "malwares" out there that are looking to scam you, but they are just variants on all the other scareware/trickware scams out there, none of which are platform-specific. They aren't viruses, because words mean things, and they aren't viruses. No Mac "anti-virus" is going to protect you from stuff like that Nigerian prince who wants to give you money, and Apple has already patched the MacDefender trickware, so an anti-virus is IMHO a complete waste of time, money and resources.

Third, Sophos isn't free. Maybe they make a good-for-nothing free trial version, but the only free A/V program for Mac is ClamXAV, and it only exists because there are Windows viruses you could inadvertently pass on to Windows users.
An inflexible complacency can be a dangerous view to hold. You can't fault people for showing some concern for what can be. While I agree that the threat to OS X is relatively low, nothing is "too bulletproof." If it was bulletproof, Apple wouldn't have made security a focus for Lion.

So, I agree that OS X has no immediate threat but if the MacDefender experience has taught us anything, it has shown us that anything is possible. The day will come when a virus is successfully released for OS X and to think that such an event won't ever occur is problematic. All I'm suggesting is that there be a cognizance of the fact that people prepare differently for the inevitable. While choosing to use certain products may not be the best choice now, perhaps we should be congratulating people for being concerned about the security of their computer instead of solely pointing out the inappropriateness of their preparation.
 
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Buckley, Washington is a small community that had no reported murders in 100 years. That record was broken in February, 2007. Just because something hasn't occurred yet doesn't mean it won't occur.

I recall in the late 90s battling the Autostart worm on OS 8 systems. This little bug moved from computer to computer through the CD autostart capability. Days would be spent trying to eradicate it, only to have one infected file opened and the system would be infected again in a matter of hours.

If you choose to use an antivirus program or if you choose not to, fine. That's up to you. There's no evidence, no reason to believe at all, that we will never be the victim of another virus attack. It'll probably happen. It's just a matter of time. Like the residents of Buckley, although we can still walk the streets and feel safe for the most part, we should no longer take our security for granted.
 
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chas_m

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... aaand once again, actually asking people to produce evidence of an actual Mac virus is all that's needed to settle the issue in my favour. Point made.
 

chscag

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OK, chas. You win. Now let's drop it. OK?

Thanks.
 
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Had the exact same thing with my hotmail account. The simplest option for me was deleting it. Tried all sorts of remedies but none worked. At the time I didn't require a hotmail account so deleting it wasn't a problem. However, and somewhat ironically, after deleting it I then required the use of a live account for Microsoft expert zone. Doh!
 
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... aaand once again, actually asking people to produce evidence of an actual Mac virus is all that's needed to settle the issue in my favour. Point made.

Chas, some people use "virus" in the generic sense. Your zealousness on this particular topic is getting pretty old, I suggest you move on and perhaps read #1 in our Mac-Forums Community Guidelines.

Your harping on this is like me berating you for blowing your nose with a kleenex because you really used Puffs brand and not Kleenex.

Seriously...the English language isn't that hard to interpret.
 

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