My Email has been hacked again!!

I wrote earlier this month that I was with HughesNet satellite internet and had been hacked. I changed my email address and have a strong password. Everything has been okay for a couple of weeks and then I was hacked again this morning and HughesNet shut down my outgoing emails.

HughesNet takes no responsibility in this and I am at a loss of what to do. I have had my computer checked out..no problems. The only thing I can think of is that I take my computer from home to my work place which is on DSL.

Please help.

Thanks.

Would like to know a bit more information. What kind of computer this is, your email client, who is your email host (gmail, hotmail, yahoo etc.), what is actually happening? Email being hacked is a very general statement.

My provider is HughesNet since I can only get satellite internet. I have an iMac running Snow Leopard. All of a sudden I get a lot of returned emails that I have not generated and HughesNet shuts down my ability to send emails with the following error message: "End-of-data rejected: user has temporarily exceeded the allowed mail recipient relays per day. Please try again later."
I have changed my email address and changed my password many times and this keeps happening. HughesNet acts like I am sending the emails. I just don't know what to do. Should I have additional security on my Mac?

Your post was moved to the correct forum.

I don't believe the problem is with your machine or with your office DSL. The problem may be with HughesNet if they do not have the proper security procedures in place to protect subscribers. I personally do not trust a satellite subscriber service but I understand if that's all you have, there's not much you can do about it.

I remember your problem from the last time you posted and we advised you to change your address and use a strong password. If you have done both and your account was once more compromised, it certainly looks like it's the fault of HughesNet.

If possible, do all your email from the office where you have a DSL connection which is very likely to be more secure than HughesNet.

That is what I was thinking...that the problem is with HughesNet. They will not take any responsibility for the problem.

Thank you for your help.

How much is in your mailbox >1gb? If this is a temporary intermittent problem it may just be hughesnet throttling your bandwidth per your service plan. There is a slim possibility it is apart of a spammer botnet and it has a keylogger.

Can you see any receipts of the failed emails of where it was trying to send to? Was it trying to send to everyone in your address book? I'm not too familiar with hughesnet but I know with gmail you can see where there are or have been active logins to your email see if there is a way you can check that.

If everything still seems broken your best option would be to just abandon the email address.

I am not sure what my mailbox is regarding size and this has happened six times...I have changed passwords and finally closed the email account and set up a new one...with HughesNet. The following is an email that was returned and came into my junk folder. It looks like they are going down the alphabet and the 80 that were returned started with "j" and "k." As you can see the email is generated from a yahoo email account.

From: Yahoo! <[email protected]>
Reply-To: Yahoo! <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:11:54 +0100
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: Pending Messages!



Dear Yahoo User,

your two incoming mails were placed on pending status due to the recent upgrade to our database,

In order to recieve the messages Click here <http://ipspackaging.co.nz/images/Online/webmail/yahoo/yahoomail/yahoomail.html> .to login and wait for responds from Yahoo.

We apologise for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

Regards, Yahoo.

I checked the link in the message above, and our internet proxy lists it as a phishing site. If you have entered your Yahoo information in that site, you've given away your password.

I'm not aware of a native Mac spambot, but that doesn't mean they couldn't exist. Odds are your email address is being spoofed on someone's Windows box that IS infected with a spambot. Infected user sends an email out with your email address as the sender, and you get the bouncebacks as though you sent them yourself. Is there anyone you know with a Windows computer who would have had all your email addresses for which you've had problems? A relative or friend?

The email was in my junk mail folder listed as undelivered mail. I have not entered a yahoo site...at least I don't think so. None of the addresses in these emails are part of my address book. No one with a windows computer would have my address book info.

I am a "dummy" when it comes to the technical workings of the internet although I am very careful with any of my personal information. I am probably not giving you the information you need...sorry. I am just so frustrated with this happening and HughesNet takes no responsibility on their end.

Well, it happened again. I am using a gmail account for email and they alerted me that my email had unusual activity and sent me several emails asking if I had generated them. I had not so I immediately changed my password. I don't know what to do.

That definitely looks like a phishing e-mail to me. Rule of thumb - don't give out your password in response to any e-mail. Yahoo doesn't send those kinds of e-mails to begin with. If you get an e-mail with a link - telling you you have a package, or lost money, or an error with your bank account or credit cards, etc. etc. - no matter how legitimate the link or the website looks - don't follow it.

When in doubt - go to your account the way you always do and login, NEVER use the link from the e-mail. These guys are getting very good at crafting very authentic looking e-mails and hosting very authentic looking websites, but all it is is a ploy to get your login information captured.

Change your passwords - make them strong - and be suspicious of anything you recieve.

Well let's get a few things laid out straight so you know where you focus your attention..

HughesNet is your ISP, i.e., Internet Service Provider..they allow you to get onto the Internet. If they allowed an infiltrator to somehow get access to your computers in your home and harm them in some form, then they should be held liable for that lapse of security and made to fix it..

On the other hand, when you use their service to visit an e-mail service like Yahoo or GMail and have your account on their be compromised, it is usually not due to their doing but rather due to a phishing e-mail or weak password or the mail server being compromised by hackers..You cannot blame HughesNet for this..

Now when you visit website you traditionally prefix it with HTTP:// and if you don't specifically add that to the URL, it's being added for you. However, there is the HTTPS:// variant which adds a security layer on top of the standard HTTP access.

GMail allows you to visit and use the mail server with HTTPS://, i.e., with security enabled all the time. Whenever you buy anything online and need to hand over your credit card, you'd want to make sure that HTTPS:// is set as well..

Now couple using GMail through HTTPS with a strong password and you should pretty safe from hackers. The next thing is that there is a TON of phishing (ask, if you don't know what this is) e-mail out there, so be VERY careful when and where you are entering password.

GMail just introduced a 2-step verification process that requires you to enter your password and couple that with a 6 digit number being generated on your smartphone..

Lastly, it's always the "dummies" with technology that get taken advantage of, either simply by having their accounts hacked or monetarily. So learn as much as you can about the technology you are using so that you don't get taken advantage of..

A strong password will not stop a keylogger. Go to the bottom of your gmail in your internet browser and look at Last account activity. There should be a link to details click on that and look for suspicious logins. You should see your normal logins from your IP address ( can be check here http://www.whatsmyip.org).

You may want to look into the possibility of getting ready to back up your data and re-install your OS. If the keylogger is that undetectable, that is really the only way to ensure its completely gone.

Thank you for your suggestions. I did check the activity and it was all my activity.

I have talked to so many different people and it is confusing because I have been a Mac user and an Internet user for many years and never had any problems. While I may be a "dummy" I am certainly not stupid and am very careful and NEVER give out my password.

I will reload my OS and hopefully it won't happen again.