Hi there,
Don't worry. You're getting these messages because
someone (who knows who) is using your e-mail address
falsely to try to send (usually virus infected) e-mails
to other people. One thing though, DO NOT OPEN ANY
ATTACHMENTS THAT YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE!!!! The
people who are using your e-mail may have found it from a
forum just like this one by using a program that scans
for e-mail addresses. If you do post your e-mail here,
make sure that you make it something like
(e-mail address removed) or like I do
(e-mail address removed). Put something in there
that people will know to remove.
I have been getting these e-mails for quite a while as
well. The only suggestion that I can make is to change
your e-mail address and inform everyone that you know of
the change. This may be a hassle, so if possible, set up
a secondary e-mail address and gradually move all of your
e-mail usage to the new address and deactivate the old
one.
Usually a change like this can be done either via your
ISP (if it's an account that came with internet
subscription) or the techie at work (if it's a work e-
mail). If it's a hotmail account, set up a new one and
move your usage over to the new account and just forget
about the old one. It'll go out on its own after 2 or 3
months, I can't remember which.
Another good practice. Get a good anti-virus program.
Best value for money = Norton Antivirus. Symantec has the
very best turnaround time on new threats. Some other
freeware antivirus program makers actually wait until
Symantec comes out with their definitions and basically
just copy over what symantec has done into their own
system. This process takes time, and that means that
there is more time for something to get in. I may sound
paranoid, but I was one of the first people to get hit by
the Welchia worm last year. I got hit within 6 hours of
it first being detected. To make a long story short, I
lost everything, including a 3000 word report for one of
my classes that I only had about 1500 words printed out
at the time (that's a lot of hours...*grasps chest*).
Hope this helps,
Nick
(e-mail address removed)
