My email is spamming?

[drfsupercenter]

My dad tells me that he got an email from our ISP saying that one of our accounts was sending out lots of spam and that they were threatening to cut off our email. Obviously, this is a big deal. I have not noticed any excessive Internet usage, or email usage. But, I want to get to the bottom of this. I just reformatted my mom's hard drive so that probably isn't the problem.

Is there some freeware program that can detect when each SMTP email server is being used? This could help us figure this problem out. I am scanning for viruses now, but I doubt that would be the cause.

Anyone else had any problems like this? Let me know!

[Gary D]

Try Microsoft Anti Spyware. Some spyware does this. http://www.filehippo.com/

What virus protection are you using??

[photo_angel2004]

I use Norton internet security 2006, I have not had a problem.

[soup]

Thunderbirds are go. Mozilla rocks.

[Chewy]

drf,
download trojanhunter, do auto update during install! 30 day full free trial
run deep scan, wear tin foil hat!

or get ready to lose internet from hosting spam zombie trojans, and sony rootkit clan







just joking(colored parts)

[drfsupercenter]

I use McAfee, just updated and scanned last night and no viruses. Now, there are four computers on this LAN, not just mine.

I will try that trojanhunter when I get home from school, but is there some way to monitor outgoing SMTP mail usage, just as IE monitors your Internet history?

[Chewy]

It won't technically have to be a virus, it could be a trojan that was embedded in a P2P download or an attachment to instant messaging?

task manager can be set to monitor bytes sent

[drfsupercenter]

Hmmmm, but would it use my bandwith? Or could it just tell the WideOpenWest email thingy to send emails on my behalf without eating my bandwith up.

And the virus scan came out negative, so I don't know... maybe I am checking the wrong PC.

[nwg]

A spammer got hold of my email address from a previous ISP. Whoever, it was was sending thousands of emails every day. I only realised what was happening as someone clicked on "remove me from the list" and I got the email. I then also started getting hundreds of bounced of emails everytime I checked emails. The ISP did nothing to stop it so, I cancelled the account and moved elsewhere.

[Chewy]

spam zombie versus email spoofing

[drfsupercenter]

What do you mean by that? You are saying they would not use my PC but theirs?

And we are not going to get another ISP - WideOpenWest is the cheapest around, better than (eww) Comcast. It would suck to have my email closed as I am the only one in my family other then my dad who uses Yahoo too, my sisters and my mom would kill me if we couldn't use WOW email anymore.

[Chewy]

email spoofing would not be your fault and they couldn't close your account
for that no matter how many complaints, the headers in the spam would prove that your IP didn't originate the spam, but if you are infested with a spam zombie trojan then that's your fault and a violation of terms of use.

[drfsupercenter]

How would I find this out? I have not seen any unusual behavior in Outlook Express, and I do not even know what spam they are talking about, as nothing shows up in Sent Messages.

[drfsupercenter]

My dad just tried something... when you set your account to "pop3.mail.wowway.com" and same for smtp, it changes to "0000003" or "0000004" on first send/recieve. Does this mean that's the problem? Mine does not do this, so I can probably assume my computer is not the culprit.