Dear Geek;
My clients and friends are receiving spam that appear to be from my email address, but I’m not sending these emails. What do I do?
Sincerely,
Spammed
Answer:
If your friends, coworkers, and clients are asking why you are sending them ads for penis enlargements, it likely means that your password to your email account has been compromised (unless you’ve gotten a new gig, and just haven’t told anyone yet). Your newly ‘unlocked’ email is now helping out your not-so-friendly neighborhood spammer. “Spammer” is likely using your email to send spam to everyone in your address book (plus some other lucky recipients, as well). As if Spammer wasn’t having enough fun with just your email, you can also assume that any important personal information that was in your email archive (ie emails from other sites that contain your passwords there) is compromised as well. You have your work cut out for you, not to mention that you have some ‘splainin’ to do to your clients and co-workers.
To try to wrestle control of your email back, or at least save your reputation, try the following:
1. Try to log into your email account. If you get an “Incorrect Password” error, it means that Spammer changed your password, and you may have lost access to that email account permanently. You can try contacting your email provider, to see if it can stop the Spammer from sending any more spam, and you can try asking them to restore your account. However, you may find yourself needing to create a new account.
2. If Spammer hasn’t changed your password, change your password IMMEDIATELY! Once Spammer is locked out, you can begin the process of contacting everyone in your address book to explain the situation (or, if you check your account’s “Sent” folder, it may tell you who Spammer sent spam emails to). Be sure to assure them that you alone have control of your email account again.
3. Now that you have control of your email account once again, it’s VERY important to change all your passwords to any sites you visit. Spammer could have used your email account to gain access to passwords to your other accounts as well.
Good luck (you may need it)!
If you have a question for our Resident Geek, send it to: geek@tbyd.ca. We’ll translate it from Geek-lish to English, so it actually helps!
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