What I'm reporting is current and ongoing, and not a general admonition or "forward me" recycled netlore.
This mainly affects users of the "Big Three" e-mail providers (Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail/MSN/Live) but it's been known to affect users of other systems as well.
What we've been seeing over the past several days is a pattern of spam and links to ratware being sent out in the name of list members. Inspection of the message headers reveals that these are not simple cases of From: address spoofing, but are messages originating from the actual users' accounts. These are being sent to addresses which appear in the users' contact lists.
Not only is this sending out junk in the name of innocent users, IT IS REVEALING THE CONTENTS OF ADDRESS BOOKS AND CONTACT LISTS! (E-mail addresses of such things as banks and therapists have appeared in recent samples.)
Please, everyone, take this opportunity to be sure your personal PC is secure.
If you're not running anti-virus/anti-malware software, here are links to two products which are free for noncommercial personal use:
http://free.avg.com/ww-en/free-antivirus-download
http://www.emsisoft.de/en/software/download/
Another free product which is useful and goes beyond the above two is Spybot Search And Destroy:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/
In the event you believe that your Hotmail/Gmail/Yahoo account has been compromised, the following procedure will usually be effective in cleaning things up:
1. From a KNOWN CLEAN COMPUTER (NOT the one you usually use to access the account), change the password on your account. No, it is usually unnecessary to abandon an account and start another one.
2. BEFORE you access the account from the computers you usually use, perform virus/malware/spybot scans and correct any issues which you discover.
If you're not technically-savvy and need help, ask assistance from someone who is, or utilize a service agency such as Geek Squad.
And please, don't shoot the messenger! If someone reports garbage coming from your account, please don't get upset. Take it seriously and take steps to correct it. Let's all do what we can to help keep the net clean!
