My Gmail account appears to have been compromised in some way. I logged into my account this evening to reply to some messages and was suddenly in receipt of a number of "failed send" messages. I then received an e-mail from a contact, saying that the content might be a virus. I checked my outbox and reported 84 messages spam as they were not sent by me. I read some of them and they seemed to be about Harry Potter.
If anybody is in receipt of any spam/suspicious e-mails from my Gmail account, I apologise unreservedly. I have changed the password to the account as a precaution but I fear this might have something to do with the fact that we don't, currently, have anti-virus software. In all honesty, we can't afford it at the moment.
I don't know what else to suggest other than that it might be worthwhile deleting any messages you receive from my Gmail account unread within the next few days until I get a response from Google.
You can find a decent antivirus for free. Avast (www.avast.com) is the one I use, but if you find that it doesn't help, you might require a clean-up software like Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (https://www.malwarebytes.org/). Malwarebytes is a strong specific tool for spyware (which is the kind of virus you have), but doesn't offer real-time protection (it only cures, but doesn't prevent). Avast on the other hand checks everything you open.
ReplyDeleteOr something like AVG which has a free version too.
ReplyDeleteI have had the same experience recently. Anti-virus helps (I use AVG) but it's not foolproof.
ReplyDeleteI hope Avast works for you. If not, you could consider using Linux. Not that Linux is free from malware! It is a risk there too, but there are steps you can take to protect yourself. Wikipedia has an article on the risks and tools that you can use to help defend yourself.
ReplyDelete