Windows 7 - Odd situation or maybe not.

So here we go I seem to be getting crap e-mails from one of and
sometimes 2 of my e-mail addresses. They are addressed to some of but
not all my contacts. I get them on my home computer, my work computer,
and my cell phone. Now the interesting part. I have no address book that
I know of on my computer as I know all my contact addresses and use my
memory rather than a contact list. I have run every scan that you can
think of both normally and in safe mode using Avast as well as
Malwarebytes.I am not sure if this is what they call spoofing or what
but needless to say it is tiresome as friends and family are getting a
tad ticked about getting them.I am very careful about where I surf and
what info is given out and it is neither of these addresses that would
be. These e-mail contain random words or sometimes a link to something
like "Hey I am buying a new home this year" as well as a link to see
some crap I am sure.

Any ideas or a direction would be unbelievably appreciated!!

Hi, Drew.

The emails "from" myself had just about stopped for several years, but I have
received a few in the past couple months.

A favorite trick of spammers a few years ago was to find an unprotected
address book - it might have been your Mom's (or whoever).  The spammer's
program would randomly select two contacts - perhaps you and your cousin.
Then the program would send a weird message "from" you to your cousin.  Your
cousin would complain to you about that message; you would claim innocence -
and the conversation would escalate.  If your Mom had two contact entries
for you, then you might get one of those messages from yourself.

Often, of course, the scheme was not so harmless.  The phony message might
be harmful and it might go to hundreds of your contacts - no, to your Mom's
contacts, because it is her address book, not yours, that got raided.  And
the spammer might not need to find an address book at all; how about one of
those endlessly-forwarded messages on AOL (as one outstanding example, but
there are others).  Each Fwd: probably carries along addresses of dozens of
the sender's closest friends, plus dozens of the friends' friends...ad
infinitum.  A spammer's gold mine!  :>(

If you are a computer/Internet expert and have unlimited time, you probably
can track down the spammer - eventually - and put him out of business, only
to see him pop up with a different name and address tomorrow.  But the only
practical solution is to just Delete each such message and forget it.  There
probably is no problem on your computer - no virus, no malware of any kind -
so there is nothing for Malware Bytes or SUPERAntiSpyware to find.   About
all you can do is explain this to your friends and family and plead
innocence.  (It has probably happened to some of them, too.)

And please "practice safe hex"!  Don't open emails (or click links) from
someone that you do not trust TWO ways:
1.    They will not hurt you intentionally.
2.    They are computer-savvy enough not to harm you UNintentionally.

Simple rules like this will do more to protect you than all the anti-malware
software on the market.  But also run the free Microsoft Security
Essentials, just in case.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010)
Windows Live Mail 2011 (Build 15.4.3555.0308) in Win7 Ultimate x64 SP1



So here we go I seem to be getting crap e-mails from one of and
sometimes 2 of my e-mail addresses. They are addressed to some of but
not all my contacts. I get them on my home computer, my work computer,
and my cell phone. Now the interesting part. I have no address book that
I know of on my computer as I know all my contact addresses and use my
memory rather than a contact list. I have run every scan that you can
think of both normally and in safe mode using Avast as well as
Malwarebytes.I am not sure if this is what they call spoofing or what
but needless to say it is tiresome as friends and family are getting a
tad ticked about getting them.I am very careful about where I surf and
what info is given out and it is neither of these addresses that would
be. These e-mail contain random words or sometimes a link to something
like "Hey I am buying a new home this year" as well as a link to see
some crap I am sure.

Any ideas or a direction would be unbelievably appreciated!!

This is not a 64-bit computing question, probably.

Your regular contacts expect to be able to white-list
(accept and trust) e-mail from you - which is why a
spammer is using your addresses as sender.

Although you may not have an address book, your
e-mail messages and other documents contain addresses.
That also goes for people who are your contacts.
Addresses may also be in some caches.  Also,
the e-mail server that you use could be compromised.

The spammer probably is not using your computer or
reproducing the header lines in e-mail that can
identify for instance the program that you are using
for e-mail - unless they are.

You could change your address for sending e-mail,
and tell friends to blacklist the old one.  But keep
it for anything that you need to receive at the old
address.

A few years ago, someone did research and found that
an e-mail address that contains the letters "spam",
or perhaps "nospam", would be filtered out from
spammers' target lists as, presumably, probable
deliberately tampered and unusable addresses, and
(at the time) not worth deciphering when there are
plenty more of more careless victims.  So if that
simply is your actual e-mail address, then
apparently you are surprisingly safe.  Spammers
also apparently do not like to attack ".mil",
and variations on it.

Virus and malware scanners are not perfect; they can
be deceived by malware itself when it is running.
And a recent internet virus exists in Java only in
memory, apparently, and not in disk files where it
can be scanned.  To avoid such threats as far as
possible, use the latest maintenance and security
releases of Java and other software products, as far
as you can.

Thanks as always for your response R.C.. Although not a whiz like some I
have always been a little paranoid about security and I am and have
always been if anything overly careful about things I do and places I go
as well as not opening anything that looks even the slightest bit
suspect. The issue probably originated from elsewhere but since my
family is not as "careful" as I and as you said trusting in my address
it probably originated or multiplied from them. I will probably do as
you say and abandon those addresses for all but received mail. That will
definitely get more scrutinized.

Thanks again
Drew.

Robert. Thanks for the info and yes I incessantly update both antivirus
and antimalware as soon as possible as well as run "quick"scans every
other day and a full scan every Sunday. I am kind of a nut for security
in all regards of computer life.