My computer may have been hacked (or similar)

Forums: Computers, Imac, Email, Possible Hacking
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I'm going to deal with it tomorrow, just found out as I don't read my emails daily.

Anyway, if any a2kers get an email from me with a link to some site that sells raspberry jam, that wasn't sent by me. I hope you don't open the link, if it is a hack.

Far as I can tell it, whatever it is, sent this to all on my present listed contacts at yahoo.com.
It's similar to what happened about a month ago when everyone in creation got an invite, and maybe more than one, pleading with them to check me out on Linkedin.
I think yahoo owns Linkedin.

All very embarrassing. Apparently I sent this stuff to my eye surgeon, Medicare, old colleagues, people who have died that I don't want to erase from my contacts, the local Water Authority, the trust that funded my care of Katy, on and on. Oh, and [email protected]. Hah. Jam for the hamsters, but where is the toast?

I'm working up a list of new and different passwords.
I'll be sending people real emails explaining - but that'll take a batch of time.

I'll be moving my contacts list off the computer to a print out hard copy - erk, work! Will probably change email provider - it if the yahoo connection pans out (I don't understand hacking and its ramifications). Of course, another email provider would have my info then, when I send emails, but I'll avoid keeping a list.

Any advice welcome. (I have an old mac, if that matters, and am not connected to any networks that I know of.)
edit - I just remembered, I got a lot of emails saying mail from all sorts of people couldn't be delivered - those daemon notices, but this time from others to me.

I did get a real email from a friend who was telling me my computer was probably hacked (she got the jam notice), plus ordinary emails I get from art websites and so on.

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Just change your password on your yahoo account and you should be fine.

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@JPB,

Really? That would save a lot of work - which I'll probably do anyway re contacting those who got the emails, but with less anxiety.

Thanks, JPB, you're a peach.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

The same thing happened to me not too long ago. I went to log in to my yahoo account to change the password and found it already locked due to "unusual activity". Even if yahoo hasn't already locked it to prevent further spamming, you can easily change your password.

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@JPB,

Great, I just did.
I also changed my bank password since I tend to do that anyway semi routinely.

A year or so ago, I still used a favorite password for some of my favorite sites, though given how many sites I follow for different reasons, I had used new and different passwords for many. Yahoo emailed me that my password might have been broached (or some similar message) and that had been one that I had used in more than one place. So, I got busy and changed most passwords, all different. I should probably do that anyway every once in a while.

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@ossobuco,

One more question -

if some friend opened up the raspberry jam link, would they have any trouble from doing that?

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@ossobuco,

Well you have a mac so that made any help as far as your computer security I can give you of very limited value.

One suggestion you can just pad all your old passwords with for example ////// or ..... or>>>>>.

Here is a wonderful link on creating passwords and checking the strength of the passwords

https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm

Next suggestion is to download the mac version of truecrypt and created an area on your drive that is encrypted for containing such information as passwords so they can be on your computer but only at risk when you are accessing them to use.

Of course I am sure there are virus scanning programs for mac and I would used them.

Oh one other thing change any of your securety questions to access your accounts in case you have forgotten your passwords and be sure to place a very strong password on your recovery email account.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Thanks. I have gotten much better with choosing strong passwords, but the yahoo one was not at the highest strength - it's much improved this morning.

Tnx re how to encrypt too.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

The newer versions of the MAC OS have pretty good built-in anti-viral and Malware blockers.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5039356?start=0&tstart=0

If you're still running a very old machine you might want to consider upgrading to a newer version of the OS or even a new machine (if yours is very old).

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

ClamXav is a free anti-viral scanner for MAC's. It's compatible back to V10.5 I think.

http://www.clamxav.com

ClamXav is also available through the App Store, but you only have access to the App Store if you are running Mac OS X 10.6 or newer. If you are at 10.6 or newer, then use the App Store version.

The newer your OS X Version is, the less likely that you'll need any Anti-Viral software other than what's natively built into the OS.

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@rosborne979,

I'd love to, but it can't be upgraded it's so old, 2006, snow leopard as far as I can get. That's also why I can't upgrade adobe flash. I can't afford a new one (love to) or even a younger one than mine, used. We'll see, in the future.

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@rosborne979,

Thanks, I'll look into that - mine's 10.6.8

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

Thanks, I'll look into that - mine's 10.6.8

10.6 is Snow Leopard, and Snow Leopard isn't that old, so it will have some pretty good AV protection built into it. None the less, from what you described, it sounds like your machine (or a different machine with access to your Email account address book) has an infection or a trojan program running on it.

You should be able to find ClamXav on the App Store for Free. Let me know if it finds anything during the scan.

Good luck,

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@ossobuco,

Hi!
Forum noob here, but Mac Power user... for what that's worth.
Anyway, it is very doubtful that your Mac is hacked. It was Yahoo that was hacked. I saw the solution here in a post, which is to change your yahoo password.
However, I have seen more and more hacking of sites where millions of people have put lots of information. The hackers are gaining access via other methods than guessing your password. They are getting in through vulnerabilities in the servers of the site itself. As a precaution, I think people should remove important information from such sites and store it on secure hard drives in fireproof locations. If this seems over-kill then maybe your information is not that important to you. I read that yahoo no longer allows users to not be tracked. That means that every piece of information about your use of yahoo that might generate advertising revenue for yahoo can and will be used by yahoo to send ads that you might be interested in. One the one hand this could be a good thing. On the other hand, they also collect everything else about you that you passes through their system. This includes the emails that you send through their servers. So be careful about what you send in an email. If possible, use encryption for everything that leaves your personal control. There is no reason to make it easy for the people who would use that information for their personal gain.

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My computer may have been hacked (or similar)

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