Anti Spyware

How do I find out how spam e-mails are using Yahoo to send bogus messages.?

I recently found out that two e-mail messages were sent from me to many of my contacts and to people copied in messages to me. These messages were sent with links to commercial sites advertising ED type drugs. I have the usual protection against malware. After this happened a second time I scanned my PC with tools from my security provider, which I downloaded. The scan came up empty. Any ideas on what else I could do?

Public Comments

1. First, the emails might be send from any machine using your email address - there exist many mail servers that allow sending from any email address without checking if these email address belongs to user. Mailing is insecure. So, someone from your friends might have worm that sends emails in your name Second, it depends how computer experienced you are. Start->run->cmd . Then type netstats -a . If you got a mailing worm, you will see lots of connections to mailing server. Also, you can try spybot S&D, malwarebytes anti-malware or spyware doctor ( http://pack.google.com ) to detect them automatically. Though no tool got 100% detection ratio
2. Often the spammers obtain passwords by using phishing spam. If you got an email claiming to be from Yahoo asking for your password, it was not really sent by Yahoo. Log onto your Yahoo email straight from your browser, without using links from within an email or any board posting. Go to: Options Mail Options Account information You will be asked to give your password again. This is safe as long as you started from a proper Yahoo login, not a link from within a spam or other link. From here you can change your password. However, you also want to look at the Contact Information. You should find a Yahoo! Email that agrees with your account name. You may find a Home Email. This is an alternate contact address. There should not be one unless you entered one. If you find an unfamiliar one it could have been entered by the spammers. If they have inserted a home email under their control, they can report a "forgotten" password and collect the new password at that address.
3. Sounds like you picked up a virus. Immediately have your computer checked for a 'bug' or 'bugs.' Once it is clean of pests, install a firewall and an anti-virus program if you do not have one yet. I strongly recommend a program for malware and adware also. After you finish this, then go in and change your password, using a good strong one. Then, you need to inform all of your contacts that the E-mails were not from you, but a virus, and that they also need to check their computers for infection.