Email Hacked/Virus

@jmo Said

Woke up this morning to a text from my Dad asking me why I'd been sending him Emails with random links in them at 3 in the morning. Apparently I'd sent the same Email to all his Email addresses.

I checked my Email and two of my three Email addresses had a similar Email to that one sent to me.

It seems they come from an Email address I have but never use any longer (I only use it as my email to put into websites like twitter, facebook, here etc so that my actual Email isn't spammed with 'blah blah blah is now following you' etc.).

Anyway, went onto that Email address and to the 'sent' page but no Emails have been sent from that account in years.

Anyone know what's going on? I've changed my password but the whole thing is concerning. Has my laptop picked up a virus or has my Email been hacked?

@townie_guy Said

A zombie is more than just an auto spammer. It is basically a trojan, which can be remotely controlled sometimes by an irc channel. The zombie becomes one of hundreds of computers under control of one person the "zombie herder". These can zombie nets can then be used to launch large scale attacks on targets or for obtaining things like credit card numbers off of each of the infected machines. On the black market these zombie nets are worth bug bucks. They are often rented out for a set cost per hour. Ive erm experimented with creating them, in a controlled environment of course.

@Electric_Banana Said

You've got a virus that's using your computer as an auto-spammer.

They call it "Zombie."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_%28computer_science%29

@townie_guy Said

Why dont you just do a clean reinstall and get some better anti virus protection.