Email address was hacked and was used to send bogus emails so why didn't Norton 360 prevent this?

I only access my email from one of three computers and they all have Norton 360 on them. So how did my email account get hacked? I thought Norton 360 was supposed to prevent this occurrence. So if Norton 360 can't prevent this from happening do I need another product, a different product, more products? Apparently I am ignorant on this subject so I need some guidance and education, thanks for your help.


century_rider wrote:

I only access my email from one of three computers and they all have Norton 360 on them. So how did my email account get hacked? I thought Norton 360 was supposed to prevent this occurrence. So if Norton 360 can't prevent this from happening do I need another product, a different product, more products? Apparently I am ignorant on this subject so I need some guidance and education, thanks for your help.


Welcome,

If you use an email client which is on another server, gmail, live, etc., then your Norton protection does not cover the account. To be protected by Norton you need to be using an email client that resides on your computer, thunerbird, outlook, etc.,

To minimize the damage done by this incident you need to change your password and the responses to all of the security questions. To prevent it from happening again I'd recommend that you get an email client that runs on your computer, behind your Norton firewall. Then remove your addressbook from the other location.

Keep us posted

Sorry, I should have been more informative. I do not use webmail, only access email from Outlook 2010. I use IMAP, do not use an exchange server so most of my contacts are stored on my office computer (Dell Optiplex 755, XP Pro). My home computer is a Dell Optiplex 755, XP Pro, and my laptop Dell Inspiron XP Pro there may be some contacts on those two computers but from the people that contacted he is seemed that the hacked email account came from my office computer.

You might want to check with your IT people at work. If they back up your work computer and their systems have been hacked, that could explain it.

 

What email provider do you use, and what information do they store on their sites?

 

 

 

My office computer uses N360 to backup files to a separate hard drive in my computer (D drive). Norton Ghost 15 is run one a week to image the C drive to the same backup drive (D drive) that N360 uses, so everything is local. Email provider is part of the website hosting package. I do use IMAP so all of my emails are on the host server but contact information is on my computer. I do not use a webmail address book.

Hi century_rider,

 

Did all or most of your contacts receive spam from you? 

I do not know a percentage, I have 117 email address in Outlook. I was notified by 10 or so people about the bogus email. Most of my address book is business related so I would not expect to hear from all of them. All of the people who contacted me were more than just casual business acquaintances.

Do the people that contacted you know each other? I ask, because it could be one of their accounts that was hacked and if they had the same contacts as you the hacker could have chosen your info for the sending of the bogus emails.

 

 

 

Interesting hypothesis, that will take a little checking but I will do the leg work to see if I can find some commonality. This will take a while but I will get back to you.

We'll be here.