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Evergreen Dazed wrote:
People attempt to hack into your accounts in different ways, some will try by sending you an email pretending to be from a trusted source (bank/ebay/whatever) and hoping you'll click on the link within the email, which will take you to a fake site, made up to look like real thing. They will often say they need to verify your details or some such nonsense.
This is easy to get around - Never follow a link from an email unless you are absolutely certain its bona fide.

Sometimes people will attempt to hack in to your account by basically throwing a huge pre-prepared password list at it. This is why its a good idea to follow advice about secure passwords, which are less likely, but still not 100%, to fall victim to this type of attack.

Another type is malware, particularly keyloggers. This may be hidden in a legitimate download your are making or from an infected site. It will sit on your machine and record all your keystrokes and transmit them to Mr/Mrs Naughtys computer.
Best way to avoid this is by installing good internet security software and scheduling regular scans.

Its impossible to be 100% secure on-line, but I hope this helps!

Thanks Si. I don't open anything that is not from a recognised source and have good AV programmes running (McAfee and AV14). I was sent an email from a friend (supposedly) who passed on the mail sent to him by me (supposedly) in the form of a begging letter saying I was marooned in Manilla. I had no reason not to open it as it appeared to be a ligit post from him. The moment I opened his mail my laptop crashed then fired up again. That's when my emails and addresses vanished. That easy. If the begging email had come directly to me I would never have opened it.
I've changed my password now and had all my missing mails and addies restored by Yahoo.

Sanctuary wrote:
Thanks Si. I don't open anything that is not from a recognised source and have good AV programmes running (McAfee and AV14). I was sent an email from a friend (supposedly) who passed on the mail sent to him by me (supposedly) in the form of a begging letter saying I was marooned in Manilla. I had no reason not to open it as it appeared to be a ligit post from him. The moment I opened his mail my laptop crashed then fired up again. That's when my emails and addresses vanished. That easy. If the begging email had come directly to me I would never have opened it.
I've changed my password now and had all my missing mails and addies restored by Yahoo.
So in actual fact two things happened, firstly the fraudulent emailer sent you an email purporting to be from friend, enclosing in his email the 'fraudulent' earlier email. So why though, did your computer crash, is there a third happening... As we all had one as you know Roy, that looks a bit scary..
Confused.

From your description it sounds like there was an executable file, activated by opening the mail. Your Internet Security software should have picked that up if that was the case.
I dont know how you are accessing your mail but you may want to look into the options for stopping scripts automatically running, and/or look at the options within your internet security for that too.

Sanctuary wrote:
[quote="Evergreen Dazed"] The moment I opened his mail my laptop crashed then fired up again.
Really! I didn't realise they could do that straight from opening an email especially if you have a good AV running. Opening links or attachments I can understand but straight from an email is worrying. Did you get any feed back how they did this or indeed does anybody else have any idea.
It has never happened to me like that only by opening bad links through my own stupidity.
I would be interested to know and personally, I would ditch your AV and get something even better or possibly by a Mac!
:o)