Email spam/malware/virus

Hi
I have had a iMac for 2 years and have been reading this forum for a while now and I have solved many problems(queries) from reading the posts here. Thanks to you all. But this time I can not find an appropriate, answer (here or anywhere else on the web) and it is driving me crazy.

I have been receiving e-mails from people I know (but don't correspond via e-mail) with. The e-mail subject says "for carla" (my name) and the address, I have since found out is not actually the senders address but a strange yahoo address. In the body of the e-mail is just one link.

The first time, I received such an e-mail, it was from a friend of a mutual friend. In the link was the word 'picture'. As I am a photographer, I thought this friend of a friend was sending me a link to some pictures that might interest me. So I clicked on the link (STUPID, I KNOW - please don't lecture me). The link went to a, kind of directory tree thing (sorry I don't really know what it is called), it looked kind of like the directory of a windows computer. I have seen this before from photographers that put their photos in private galleries for clients to proof. So I immediately thought that, she was sending me the link to some photos that she wanted me to look at. I clicked around (yes, I know, stupid again) but could not access anything. I left the mail and forgot about it.

A few days later another one from the same person arrived. But this time the words in the link were different and I then noticed that e-mail address was different too. This time I did not click on the link and trashed the e-mail.

Since then, I have got a few of these mails - all from different people (that I know but DO NOT normally correspond with via e-mail) And the email address is not their actual e-mail address. And it always says "for carla"

I am worried that I may have infected my Mac with something. And is it my Mac or their machine that is at fault. I know for a fact that one of the "senders" also has a Mac. I am not sure about the others.

I hope you can help. And I am sorry that the explanation is so long.

Thank you
Carla

Welcome to Mac-Forums

It looks like you've gotten onto the mailing list of some spammers and have had some of your friend's email accounts be hacked giving the spammers their contact list.

Unless you downloaded something to your Mac and went through some sort of an installation process, you are safe.

Depending on what you use to access your mail, you can play with your spam setting to better train it to catch these types of email. I use GMail as my primary account and can't even tell you the sort of spam I get all specifically targeting be my name and so on.

This, unfortunately, is the nature of Internet e-mail these days. I've resorted to a point where I summarily delete any e-mails with links (regardless of who sent it). I've also set my e-mail to be in mode where only e-mails from known addresses in my contact list actually gets to me, the rest go into the spam folder and I quickly peruse it to see if I was expecting an email and then deal with it appropriately. If I do let the spam folder go for a few days, it becomes a chore to sort out the legitimate emails from the junk, but my inbox is very safe and sane..

Hi Ashwin
Thank you so much for your reply. I am really glad to hear that I am safe. I definitely did not install or download anything.

I am not sure exactly what you mean by "what I use to access my mail", but I use Mac mail and I have two mail accounts. The one that the e-mails come to is my Mweb account, which is a big ISP in South Africa. I don't use G-mail or anything like that.

I will definitely look at my spam settings because I receive alot of spam. Thanks for the advice. But the fact that this was addressed to me personally and came from people I knew, worried me.

I still don't understand how my e-mail address and their names could get connected, as I have never ever sent a mail to (and therefore they are not in my contact list , and I should not be in theirs) to any of them. In fact, one e-mail came from a well known photographer, that I follow on facebook, google+ and I read her blog. I definitely would not be in her contact list.

Thanks again

Carla

In Mac Mail, as you get e-mail anything that is spam or junk should be marked as such so that it'll start learning and start filtering those messages for you automatically.

Since you didn't download/install anything, your Mac should be safe..

Books can be written about the way the spammer/hackers get access to e-mail addresses, believe it not it's quiet a lucrative business to keep track of working e-mail addresses to share..that being the case, a prolific spammer network can send many thousands of messages every minute and they're bound to catch something with the net spread out so wide.

You'll also find that the spam comes in spurts such that you might get a similar look spam once every minute for a couple of days before it stops and a new type starts.

Thanks so much . I feel so much better now, that my Mac is safe and sound.

Funny, I have a PC laptop (mainly because I need an accounting program for work that is only Windows based) and I am not as worried if that machine gets compromised, as I am if my Mac does.