How did this happen? Spam sent from my hotmail account.

**kevdog** · April 8th, 2009

I posted about this awhile ago. You must have received the www.niyacn.com letter. Clicking on this link sent to you from a friend propogates this letter to all your contacts -- erases your contact list -- and then sets your vacation responder announcement to keep mailing this letter if anyone attempts to contact you! See if your vacation response announcement has been altered. There are a few reports on the 'net about this, but the response from M$ has been tepid.

**albinootje** · April 8th, 2009

Originally Posted by kevdog

I posted about this awhile ago. You must have received the www.niyacn.com letter. Clicking on this link sent to you from a friend propogates this letter to all your contacts -- erases your contact list -- and then sets your vacation responder announcement to keep mailing this letter if anyone attempts to contact you! See if your vacation response announcement has been altered. There are a few reports on the 'net about this, but the response from M$ has been tepid.

In the thread about your original posting about this "scam" mentions an .exe file.

The OP in this thread was using Linux. Perhaps with Wine installed, perhaps not, I don't know, but let's not confuse those two things.

**kevdog** · April 8th, 2009

There was no .exe file associated with the email. If you want I can email you the letter. I would suggest a google search since others confirm the same behavior as originally described by this poster. Albeit I haven't seen anything yes or no about Linux, however the reports from the hotmail.com support site are very scant. It seems like M$ is burying the issue. BTW, this also affects yahoo accounts as well, but I have seen no reports in association with gmail or any other mass email hosting service.

**albinootje** · April 9th, 2009

Originally Posted by kevdog

There was no .exe file associated with the email. If you want I can email you the letter.

Can you attach it to a personal message ? Thanks.

I would suggest a google search since others confirm the same behavior as originally described by this poster. Albeit I haven't seen anything yes or no about Linux, however the reports from the hotmail.com support site are very scant. It seems like M$ is burying the issue. BTW, this also affects yahoo accounts as well, but I have seen no reports in association with gmail or any other mass email hosting service.

So you're saying that, no matter what OS is/was used, clicking on that specific website made some sort of connection with another tab in Firefox where the hotmail user was using hotmail emails, and then launched spam emails to all the contacts in that hotmail account.

**kevdog** · April 9th, 2009

I cant confirm the OS other than Windows however it doesn't seem to be windows specific.

Here is the copy of the email:

Subject: Secure shopping !

Hello!How are you recently?

I would like to introduce a good company who trades mainly in electornic products.Now the company is under sales promotion,all the products are sold nearly at its cost.They provide the best service to customers,they provide you with original products of good quality,and what is more,the price is a surprising happiness to you!It is realy a good chance for shopping.just grasp the opportunity,Now or never!The web address: www.niyacn.com

**albinootje** · April 10th, 2009

Originally Posted by kevdog

The web address: www.niyacn.com

Now that you mention it, this is what users for WOT have to say about it : http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/niyacn.com

Here's one comment :

Like other posters, I had my Yahoo address book stolen (hacked) from my PC, despite having anti-virus, antii-malware, anti-spyware software. A letter was sent to everyone who had appeared in my address book, and that SPAM email appeared in the SENT folder of my yahoo email account.

**lisati** · April 10th, 2009

Another possibility is that some ratbag has forged your email address as the "From:" address - it's easy enough to do if you know how. I've had "bounces" come back for emails I never sent on more than one occasion - recently it was for emails supposedly sent from an email account I haven't used for some time. I usually report the bounces via spamcop with a note attached to the effect that it's backscatter from spam.