Hotmail/MSN sending random emails to friends - Spyware?

Life Technology
1

Hi All,

I suspect that I’ve been infected with some kind of spyware or virus. Random emails are being sent out from my hotmail, to I think all my friends on my Msn messenger buddy list. The emails consists of some message in Chinese (simplified, so I suspect a Mainland spayware) telling my friends to click on a link to some China website. The emails are being sent out pretty often, like everyday. This is really annoying not to mention bothering my friends.

The thing is, I ran like 10 different anti-spyware programs and cleaned out a lot of spyware, but still no luck with this particular problem.

Anybody heard of the same issue? Any suggestions on how to get rid of this? I would like to continue using hotmail/msn of course.

Thanks.

2

I hate these kind of viruses, I had one years ago which sent out to all my contacts, really annoying. Heres something on MSN viruses, it wouldnt expect the steps to be exacltly the same, but with slight variation you may get it.

[quote]To remove the virus is simple to do. Simply follow these instructions:
(If you have any problems then please post a message in the MSN Messenger Virus Forum)

  1. Close Messenger. This will simply stop any of your contacts getting the virus.
  2. Goto ‘Start’ then ‘Run’ and type ‘msconfig’. A new window should appear.
  3. Click on the tab at the top right that says ‘Startup’.
  4. Untick the box next to ‘MSN Messenger’.
  5. Click ‘ok’ and when it asks if you want to restart your computer say no.
  6. Press ‘Ctr’ + ‘Alt’ + ‘Del’. Find the file that says ‘MsgSpread’ and click End Task.

The virus has now been deactivated!

To remove it fully follow these instructions:

  1. Goto the Desktop and open My Documents.
  2. Double click on ‘Messenger Service Received Files’. If you dont see a folder called that then goto ‘My Computer’ then goto ‘C’ then ‘Program Files’ and finally ‘Messenger Service Received Files’.
  3. You should now see a file called ‘PIC1234(1)(1)(1)(1)(1)(1)(1)(1).exe’.
  4. Click on it ONCE and press ‘Delete’. This should delete the file.
  5. Empty your Recylce Bin.

The virus has now been fully removed!

[/quote]http://www.happy-messaging.com/messenger/virus/pic.html

Basically, close the application, disable the application from starting on boot, then delete the executable.

3

hm…i don’t have that file…i actually don’t even have that folder…but i ran a bunch of anti-spyware apps so we’ll see…

4

No luck here. The problem happened again after I tried all the anti-spyware programs.

I can’t find the folder “Messenger Received Files” that you suggested…and if it was indeed just one obvious file I’m sure the spyware programs would catch it, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, any other ideas? THanks.