topic Re: Hacking in Email

Hacking

MamaBas — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 12:35:52 GMT

I received a number of strange emails yesterday said to come from a friend. I was asked for financial help, but I DID NOT react. This morning she has told me and others that her email address has been hacked. Is my email addy now likely to be hacked too?

Re: Hacking

Baldrick1 — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 12:43:03 GMT

@MamaBas

Unlikely providing you did not answer any of the messages. The problem is that the bad guys may have harvested your email address from your friend.

Keep an eye out for phishing emails. A useful website is https://haveibeenpwned.com/ .

Re: Hacking

MamaBas — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 12:52:19 GMT

Of course I flippin' did but I didn't react to any of the financial requests as the text of the emails wasn't as 'normal' from my friend. She has this morning, emailed her contacts warning them she has been hacked. This is scary!

Re: Hacking

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 16:13:16 GMT

@MamaBas how do you read and send your emails ?

If you are using an email client (such as Thunderbird) on a laptop or PC, you could use the built in message filtering rules to separate out any future received emails, claiming to be from your friend, and automatically move hacked messages to your SPAM/Junk folder, or tag genuine messages as safe or move them to a folder for 'checked for safety' messages.

This can be achieved by setting filter rules to check the incoming message headers, where for example you might check that the "From:" field matches your friend's email address, and typically a hacked message will have a different "Return-Path:" field, so you then specify actions such as marking the hacked message as SPAM and move it to your JUNK folder.

Another tip, don't delete the hacked messages you have received, but instead use your email client tools to mark those messages as "Junk" or "SPAM", and move the messages to your Junk/SPAM folder. By doing that, your email client should 'learn' what you regard as unwanted, and should start identifying future messages with the same pattern of characteristics that your "marked as junk" messages contain, and automatically move those suspect new messages to your Junk folder.

Re: Hacking

MamaBas — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 16:32:27 GMT

Thanks for the help Planet X. I have now changed my email password, and also Amazon. One clue was the language used, let alone her asking me to send money/buy a gift card from Amazon..... none of it I'd have expected from the sender had it been her.

Unfortunately I have now deleted all the income, and my outgoing emails said to have come from my friend. But I will look into your suggestions re Thunderbird.

Re: Hacking

MamaBas — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 16:53:27 GMT

Planet X. Well that went well - not. I was unable to set up an a/c with Thunderbird for some reason

Never mind.

Re: Hacking

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 17:14:51 GMT

@MamaBas

"I was unable to set up an a/c with Thunderbird for some reason"

You should not have to "set up an a/c with Thunderbird".

I'm assuming that you are using Windows? I don't, but the setup should be similar:

Download the application from: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-GB

Install it and run for the first time.

In Thunderbird, go to File > New > Existing Mail Account and input your details. I use Google Mail, which populates the next stage automatically - depending upon who your email is with, you may have to do this manually.

At what stage were you asked to create a Thundebird account?

Re: Hacking

MamaBas — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 17:12:48 GMT

I didn't persue this Thunderbird option and so far, no more problems. Phew.