My email account was recently hijacked. A third party sent an email to everyone on my contact list requesting money because I was supposedly stranded in Wales. All the names on my contact list were also deleted from my email account.
What corrective actions are needed to ensure my computer is not infected. Any suggestions for the cause and future prevention would also be appreciated.
I use Windows XP, sp2. My browser is Mozilla Firefox. I have window IE 8.0.6001 loaded on my machine but seldom use it.
I use AOL for email. I have NIS 2010 which does regular live updates and scans daily.. I have an linksys router.
Since the problem, I've done the following:
I ran a full scan with Norton and found zero infections.
I changed my password on my email account.
I downloaded and ran Norton Power Eraser and found zero infections.
I also downloaded Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.50.0.0 version 5351 and found zero infections.
I don't really understand what happened. I don't open any attachments from unknown sources. How could this "thing" invade my email account and/or computer. Isn't NIS supposed to prevent this type of problem?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks