Windows 7 & NIS2012. When I was shutting down my laptop two days ago a windows update came up. I closed the lid as I previously set it to do nothing when closed. i.e. finish the update and complete the shutdown. However I forgot that I had set the closed lid as "sleep" meaning the update download/installation or the shutdown would not have completed. I found this out two hours later. When I went into my email I found loads of mailer demons and out of office notices in my inbox and a phone call from a friend confirmed that spam email had been sent out with numerous links in them using my contacts folder.
A scan with my always uptodate NIS2012 showed nothing, I downloaded Power Eraser, followed by the boot disk creation tool from symantec website. All show clear.
Do I have a more serious problem than hacked email? I am trying to asses if the email came from this PC via my ISP. Would any PC on my home netwrok, but not switched on at the time be safe to use? Help!!