Kijacked ???

beechy · 22-06-2009, 14:25

got an email from a friend with a load of spam on
supposedly sent by me,but obviously not
he told me my email account had been kijacked ?
can anyone tell me what this means and how to remedy it
thanks

Redash · 22-06-2009, 17:30

The Spammers are using legitimate email addresses to avoid spam filters. This is dead easy to do and nothing you can do about it. They just put your email address in their settings and send a couple of million spam emails out.
As for Kijacked, does your friend have fat fingers, as the H and the K are close on the keyboard. They meant Hijacked. But I'm sure you haven't been hijacked.

beechy · 22-06-2009, 19:29

think your right on the misspell,
so i have to grin and bare it

Redash · 22-06-2009, 20:31

It gets worse, your email address will eventually get flagged by the filters, then your legitimate mail could get marked as spam.

Eventually, all email will be marked as spam, and something would need to be done about it.

If people were to stop responding to the spam, and ISP's started charging money, (if a certain amount of mails were sent in a day). Then the email system would work perfectly, as it was designed to do.

beechy · 23-06-2009, 05:01

oh stop being so cheerful,
could i not just change my email address ?

Mancie · 23-06-2009, 05:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Redash

It gets worse, your email address will eventually get flagged by the filters, then your legitimate mail could get marked as spam.

Eventually, all email will be marked as spam, and something would need to be done about it.

If people were to stop responding to the spam, and ISP's started charging money, (if a certain amount of mails were sent in a day). Then the email system would work perfectly, as it was designed to do.

cor blimey Beechy you might as well end it all with a bullet to yer head..it's all doom and gloom!..what sort of life can you have when your e.mail has been Kijacked?.

beechy · 23-06-2009, 05:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mancie

cor blimey Beechy you might as well end it all with a bullet to yer head..it's all doom and gloom!..what sort of life can you have when your e.mail has been Kijacked?.

maybe they will send me a ransom email

Studio25 · 23-06-2009, 09:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by beechy

got an email from a friend with a load of spam on
supposedly sent by me,but obviously not
he told me my email account had been kijacked ?
can anyone tell me what this means and how to remedy it
thanks

Further to the other answers, if anyone has been hijacked, it's not you, it's someone known by both you and your friend.

The infected PC sends emails to addresses in its inbox/address book/sent items while purporting to be from other addresses in its inbox/address book/sent items. It increases the chances if the email being trusted by the recipient.

spex357 · 26-07-2009, 17:51

Studio that sounds a bit like the magistrate virus which sends a copy of itself along with a mail to everyone in your address book, the mail message will be made up of sections of previous emails so the message will look familiar to you but on reading it it wont follow as a properly written mail, to check ask some more people in your address book if their virus checker has flagged any of your mail. I will be suprised as its been around for some years and everyone has a virus checker on incoming and out going mail dont they? On that note i'm sure they dont have its more like a spam server and is hard to stop but can be with some detective work, first have a look at the full email header it will show a bit more info as too where its come from. I would open another email account as soon as, in case you lose it on the spam marker.