At 09:08 AM 6/8/2010, Larry Teran wrote:
SPAM get out
On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 1:42 PM, Simone T terrando@gmail.com wrote:
<snip to avoid propagating spam URL further>
These ones are the result of the account's owner getting infected with something, and a spam bot hijacking their account. Complaining about the spam does nothing (never does). The most successful approach has been to inform the affected person of the problem, and get them to scan their PC with something like the free scanner from www.malwarebytes.org , or another good malware scanner, then change their webmail password.
There is a pattern to this sort of spam/infection:
1. It ALWAYS comes from a webmail capable address (I have seen Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail accounts infected).
2. It always features a single line with a URL, maybe with one line of generic text "Hey, look at this" or similar.
How I discovered it was the account owner's PC being infected was that I posted an advisory message in the group that was getting spam, and suggesting everyone check their PC for malware. The account owner (that the spam claimed to come from) came forward and described what happened, and that they had fixed their system, once made aware of the problem. Subsequent instances of this type of spam have revealed a similar pattern. This was first sighted a few months ago.
Anyway, hope this helps people affected by this sort of problem to find and remove the offending malware.
73 de VK3JED / VK3IRL http://vkradio.com