Spam Emails

Recently I have had a spate of spam email sent from my account. And this has lead me to get very angry about it. So much I have decided I need to write a blog about it. I just want to explain to everyone about them and ho best to avoid them.

Basically spam emails work on athe prinicipal that they will spread in a chain reaction. People we send them, people will click on the links, which will then make emails send from their accounts and it will spread like so. The way the virus is able to use your acount to send emails is because upon clicking on a link or sometimes even just viewing the email it is able to track your email address and password and automatically log into your account with the use of a 'bot.' These viruses are called botnets because they spread in this automatic way.

So here is the best thing to do if you find out you are sending these emails. Change your password. The botnet relies on being able to access your account using the login details and as soon as you change them then you can stop it getting in. I would suggest changing your email password reguarly anyway. I doesn't have to be anything vastly complicated or unfathomable because the virus tracks what you type in, so it will be able to get it no matterhow complicated it is.

There are also things you should do to prevent these things happening to you. Don't open any emails unless you know what they are about, and do not ever click on any links unless you are 100% sure what they are for. If you do get a dodgy link and want to investigate, don't be tempted as it will most likely be a virus. Also make sure you let the person who has sent the email know that you sent it. They will never find out unless someone tells them they are sending them because they don't appear in any folders. The way I first came to know about it was because I got 10 failure notices that came through and a load of out of office replies, but a few people also sent me an email just to let me know I was sending out spam.

There has been a similar virus on twitter, being able to hack twitter accounts. And the same ideas apply here. Be careful with what you click on because you can never tell whether it is safe or not.

Follow me on twitter (but don't send me spam): @peachy146