Macbook Air sending out spam?

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iMac 21.5",mid2011,2.5 GHz,12 GB mem,OSX 10.13.6; iPhone SE; MacBook Air,early2015,1.6 GHz,4GB
My girlfriend has a Macbook Air, about 1 year old. Yesterday it started sending out spam emails to all of her contacts. The sent email has no text, just a link to "chodilaconmai.com/name.php". We are looking for advice as to what has caused this (a virus? hooked to a botnet?) and what should be done about it?
Thanks
Dan
 
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chas_m

Guest
My girlfriend has a Macbook Air, about 1 year old. Yesterday it started sending out spam emails to all of her contacts. The sent email has no text, just a link to "chodilaconmai.com/name.php". We are looking for advice as to what has caused this (a virus? hooked to a botnet?) and what should be done about it?
Thanks
Dan

What evidence do you have that your mail program on her computer -- as opposed to her email account with her provider -- is sending these emails out?

What's much more likely is that her email account with her provider got hacked due to a simple password. So, step one is to determine where these spam emails are ACTUALLY coming from. It's quite possible they're not from her at all, but a virus on a friends PC that is sending out spoofed emails with her address seemingly on them.

If there's any evidence that they are being sent out from her actual email account from her provider, step two would be to change the account password.
 
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Joined
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Your Mac's Specs
iMac 21.5",mid2011,2.5 GHz,12 GB mem,OSX 10.13.6; iPhone SE; MacBook Air,early2015,1.6 GHz,4GB
What evidence do you have that your mail program on her computer -- as opposed to her email account with her provider -- is sending these emails out?

What's much more likely is that her email account with her provider got hacked due to a simple password. So, step one is to determine where these spam emails are ACTUALLY coming from. It's quite possible they're not from her at all, but a virus on a friends PC that is sending out spoofed emails with her address seemingly on them.

If there's any evidence that they are being sent out from her actual email account from her provider, step two would be to change the account password.

Thanks for the reply chas_m. Being a little slow with computers, I assumed that, as the email came from her account and went to all of her contacts, that it was coming from her account. I have absolutely no idea how to go about determining where the spam is actually coming from? She changed her password today. There have been no further spam emails sent out.
Thanks
Dan
 
C

chas_m

Guest
That would indicate that in fact what actually happened was that her email password got hacked.

To be sure however, you can look at the sent box from the service (webmail), and from your own email program; if the spam emails aren't there, then it didn't come from you at all.
 

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