Curious... was AOL Hacked recently?

[dman]

My wife has a few screen names she never uses for anything. Now getting spam to those is not unusual... randomness and all. But, she's been getting spams with her and my name/address lately. Her computer has NOT been hacked, that I am sure of. Wondering if AOL list was leaked, I thought I remember reading that but not sure anymore as it's been a while. Google hasn't turned up much--yet... still searching.

Link to this link. Looks like it's true to me... and now info has been sold to spammers. Wonderful.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Those spams with her and your names are from computer viruses. The viruses will scan other people's computers and use your address from their address books as "reply-to" addresses. This is done to defer the administrative messages that are automatically generated by Email SPAM and Virus blocking software to another location to make it harder to trace and stop.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Don't need a virus for that. Try looking at the full header of the mail, and you often see some IP number in Mexico, China, or some other country where the US laws can't touch them. Or they have hacked into a server somewhere and mail from there.

Email addresses and even IP names are easy as hell to fake, I can send you an email from president@whitehouse.gov if you want.

 

[dman]

Originally posted by: Scarpozzi
Those spams with her and your names are from computer viruses. The viruses will scan other people's computers and use your address from their address books as "reply-to" addresses. This is done to defer the administrative messages that are automatically generated by Email SPAM and Virus blocking software to another location to make it harder to trace and stop.

The thing is, the screen name that was NEVER USED and would therefore never be in anyone elses address book got an email with our names and address. Similar emails were sent to her other screen names. And the issue is not who sent the spam but how they got the info associated with the email that was never used and tied it to our real names/addresses. So, now we have to wonder what else AOL Leaked to hackers...

Oh well, can't do anything but damage control now.