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Possible Virus?

S

sdawgisinthebui

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 6, 2011
52
0
Okay so about 2 weeks ago we got an email saying that someone had bought 3 kindles on our amazon and after chatting with customer service we found that they changed the email on the account ours was _____@comcast.net and they changed it to some random .net site i have never heard of and dont remember and when i went there it said not a valid site.
About 8 days later another email that we use on the same computer but not in mail (In the browser.) was hacked from Bulgaria.
Are these incidents relateded to eachother? Should I buy an anti-virus?
I have a mac desktop with 10.6.8 and intego anti-virus that expired in 2010 that i never renewed.
 
alust2013

alust2013

macrumors 601
Feb 6, 2010
4,779
2
On the fence
That's not a virus, that's someone figuring out an email password. I suggest creating new and more secure passwords for any important online accounts.
 
S

sdawgisinthebui

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 6, 2011
52
0
No

They were SEPERATE ACCOUNTS with SEPEARTE passwords completly different from eachother. The amazon email was not the email that was hacked from bulgaria. they were two seperate emails that I dont even email eachother from
 
C

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,560
1,671
Redondo Beach, California
sdawgisinthebui said:
Okay so about 2 weeks ago we got an email saying that someone had bought 3 kindles on our amazon and after chatting with customer service we found that they changed the email on the account ours was _____@comcast.net and they changed it to some random .net site i have never heard of and dont remember and when i went there it said not a valid site.
About 8 days later another email that we use on the same computer but not in mail (In the browser.) was hacked from Bulgaria.
Are these incidents relateded to eachother? Should I buy an anti-virus?
I have a mac desktop with 10.6.8 and intego anti-virus that expired in 2010 that i never renewed.
Click to expand...

Nothing to do with a "virus". Someone guessed your Amazon password. Emails from address are easy to fake without access to your computer.

What you need to do is change passwords you use to harder ones and then change them periodically
 
R

RaceTripper

macrumors 68030
May 29, 2007
2,867
178
Use 1Password and use it effectively, so that every site you login to has a different password and each password is a complex one created using 1Password's strong password generator.
 
Gregg2

Gregg2

macrumors 604
May 22, 2008
7,185
1,177
Milwaukee, WI
sdawgisinthebui said:
Should I buy an anti-virus?
Click to expand...

If you tend to buy things that are worth what you pay for them, then, no. There are no Mac viruses at this time.

(Mostly, I posted to see if the site would identify eachother as a spelling error. It did.)

But, if having an anti-virus program is important to you, there are free ones, or you can waste some money.
 
gangof4

gangof4

macrumors member
Jun 6, 2011
81
0
Texas
Why not just have one of any number of websites generate random passwords for you. You can specifiy whether you want alpha or numeric or special characters and up to 20 places
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
No viruses exist in the wild that can run on Mac OS X, and there never have been any, since it was released 10 years ago. The handful of trojans that exist can be easily avoided with some basic education, common sense and care in what software you install:
 
D

dknightd

macrumors 6502
Mar 7, 2004
334
1
sdawgisinthebui said:
They were SEPERATE ACCOUNTS with SEPEARTE passwords completly different from eachother. The amazon email was not the email that was hacked from bulgaria. they were two seperate emails that I dont even email eachother from
Click to expand...

As others have said, it is unlikely to be a virus.

More likely a brute force attack, or some social engineering.

Did you get asked to confirm either email account lately? This is
one common vector for attacks.

Use complex passwords. Don't reply to emails asking for your password.

If I were you I'd change all my passwords asap (especially if you use the same password at more than one site)

If amazon thinks you bought something you did not, I suggest checking with your credit card company and get ready to contest the charges, and perhaps cancel the account and get a new one.
 
S

sdawgisinthebui

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 6, 2011
52
0
???

But then how did they get the gmail password which is different than my comcast password. They are different emails for different people who use different services.
 
Gregg2

Gregg2

macrumors 604
May 22, 2008
7,185
1,177
Milwaukee, WI
sdawgisinthebui said:
But then how did they get the gmail password which is different than my comcast password. They are different emails for different people who use different services.
Click to expand...

Don't know, but not with a virus. That's not what a virus does. Just change your passwords, and use lower case, upper case, numbers and symbols.
 
1

126351

Guest
Sep 17, 2007
175
0
sdawgisinthebui said:
But then how did they get the gmail password which is different than my comcast password. They are different emails for different people who use different services.
Click to expand...

Your e-mail password is key. Once a malicious SOB has that, they can use it to generate password change requests for any online store or service that has links with your e-mail account. And as they have your e-mail password, they can intercept the password validation responses and change the passwords to whatever they like, giving them access to your Amazon account details.

Too many people underestimate the importance of having a strong e-mail password and figure it's Amazon and Paypal passwords that they have to worry about. Don't make the same mistake.
 
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