G'day,
Long story short
Are there any viruses that can make Apple's Mail app send out emails to people randomly, with attachments?
(iMac 2009 running Mavericks; yes I know it needs updating...)
Short story long
About a month ago a handful of people received an email "from" my father, containing an attachment that may or may not have been "bad". (No one opened it as far as we know to verify.)
The text within the email itself had originally legitimately been sent by my father from his iMac about 3-4 years earlier to a list of people. (And would almost certainly have since been deleted from his iMac, as my father doesn't believe in keeping emails more than about a month.)
The email was then re-sent as noted above (I suspect to the list of original recipients from what my father can tell), BUT, whilst the email says it is from him, the actual email address shown was "guaitajavier@speedy.com.ar" (which appears to be some kind of mild celebrity somewhere).
I personally don't believe it came from his iMac at all - I suspect it was one of the recipient's computers that has been attacked, and my father's email used on that machine.
As I'm 4 hrs away, and due to COVID, he ended up getting a former cop friend to come and check it out, and he convinced my dad that he definitely had had a virus.
Now, he's just received another email from someone telling him they received another of these emails. Again, it says my father's name, but the email address is same as above. Instead of an attachment this time it has a link to some "entertainment" website.
I've heard of "zombie" email viruses that use your computer to send out heaps of emails to people in your directory, but - is that only a PC thing, or Mac too?
Cheers
cosmic
Long story short
Are there any viruses that can make Apple's Mail app send out emails to people randomly, with attachments?
(iMac 2009 running Mavericks; yes I know it needs updating...)
Short story long
About a month ago a handful of people received an email "from" my father, containing an attachment that may or may not have been "bad". (No one opened it as far as we know to verify.)
The text within the email itself had originally legitimately been sent by my father from his iMac about 3-4 years earlier to a list of people. (And would almost certainly have since been deleted from his iMac, as my father doesn't believe in keeping emails more than about a month.)
The email was then re-sent as noted above (I suspect to the list of original recipients from what my father can tell), BUT, whilst the email says it is from him, the actual email address shown was "guaitajavier@speedy.com.ar" (which appears to be some kind of mild celebrity somewhere).
I personally don't believe it came from his iMac at all - I suspect it was one of the recipient's computers that has been attacked, and my father's email used on that machine.
As I'm 4 hrs away, and due to COVID, he ended up getting a former cop friend to come and check it out, and he convinced my dad that he definitely had had a virus.
Now, he's just received another email from someone telling him they received another of these emails. Again, it says my father's name, but the email address is same as above. Instead of an attachment this time it has a link to some "entertainment" website.
I've heard of "zombie" email viruses that use your computer to send out heaps of emails to people in your directory, but - is that only a PC thing, or Mac too?
Cheers
cosmic
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