Is this spyware?

[SB3]

I had something weird happen today. I received an e-mail in my .mac mail account from my exact user name, only it was from aim.com instead of mac.com. I've had this happen before at my work address, so I didn't think much of it. But I noticed the other recipients of this e-mail were people I had e-mailed before or who I had received e-mail from (but not necessarily in my Contacts). So my mom and some friends also received this junk mail.

I asked the IT guy at work and he told me it was spyware. I downloaded the MacScan demo and it found some tracking cookies. Is that enough to take a list of my e-mail recipients and start sending them spam? Yesterday I downloaded and installed Firefox and the Download Helper add-on. Could I have gotten it from either of these?

Any advice other than running MacScan? Is this something I should be worried about? I've been using Macs for nine years and have never had this type of trouble (or any really) before.

 

[robert05au]

someone has spoofed ypou .mac addie at sometime.

I have also seen this quite a lot laterly.

The best thing to do is log into your .mac/mobileme account and goto mail and put the message into the junk email folder and click on the message near the top right of the message click on report spam.

I am not really sure how long it takes apple to do something but it will work and they should stop.

 

[satcomer]

You just hot hit by a spamming spider because you probably listed you full email address somewhere on the net and a spamming bot found it. This is why you never list your full email address on the web message board or a chat room.

Just wait out the storm and it will stop. Then get another throw away email for when you sign up for things. Keep you private email just for family, etc.

 

[SB3]

Thanks for the responses. How is this spambot able to access a list of people I've e-mailed before? I guess that's the part that had me the most worried.

satcomer, you're totally right. I never use my private e-mail for signups. But I did slip last week without even thinking about it. Damn. I've got a bunch of other e-mails for signup stuff too.

Again, thanks for the help.

 

[angelwatt]

Thanks for the responses. How is this spambot able to access a list of people I've e-mailed before? I guess that's the part that had me the most worried.

It's possible one of these people you know are using Windows or a web-based email and had their account compromised, which could have gathered all the email addresses out of their address book. I know Yahoo had an issue with this a few years back. It can compromise some email clients on Windows too and go after the address book. You can't always stop spammers from getting your email address, because you're not always the weak link.