The Ochils Mountaineering Club

I have just received spam e-mail

it would appear that the sender got their addresses from the Ochils site - judging my a few of the other names it was sent to

Moira's email address was in the sender box but it was clear that it was nothing to do with her

be warned

Looks like either the OMC site or Moira's email has been hacked.
Nigel'll know how to sort the site; Moira should probably update her antivirus software and run a virus scan, and change her Gmail password.

In fact, looking at some of the addresses on the list, it does not look like the OMC site is the source.

I also got one of these e-mails, and left a message on Moira's phone, just in case she's not been on OMC site to see Iain's advice.

Jean

Hi there, I have just picked up Jeans phone message and I will change my gmail password right now. I have an anti virus that updates on a regular basis.

Moira

Hi

I don't believe that this has anything to do with the website. Many of the addresses in the distribution list of 'Moiras' email are not on the site. Additionally the one that I received came to my yahoo address rather than the 'veletron' address shown on the site.

I suspect Moira's gmail account has been hijacked, and a spam message sent to everyone with whom she has ever communicated! Damned spammers have nowt better to do...

It underlines the importance of having a decent password and of ensuring that any links you click are genuine!

There are some known brute force attacks in place for cracking email accounts, so its possible that Moira was simply a victim of one of these - using a non word password with numbers and caps mixed will ensure that your safe on that one!

To check whether a link you receive in an email is genuine, hover your mouse over the link and look in the lower left corner of your browser screen. If it does not look right (or does not match the printed link on the screen) then don't click it. For gmail it should be formatted as http://xxx.gmail.com/xxxx/yyyy/zzzz where the gmail.com should be in the positions shown. Same is true of yahoo, hotmail, paypal, email, lloydstsb,nationwide, blah blah!

Nigel

Hi I have been advised by google that this is a Spambot, they say it is unusual to get past the google screening process but this one has, they are trying to get to the bottom of it amd will let me know what to do, but they think I will need to change my email address which is a bummer because I have only just had new business cards printed.

I am sorry for all the hassle caused

Moira

We've received one spam email - it's hardly any hassle for us! Hope you get your email account sorted out.
It highlights a couple of points that people often don't think of (and you may have done these, but just been unlucky somehow).
As Nigel said, it's worth using a secure password for anything that matters - not just a word or name, but a mix of numbers and letters, upper case and lower case, ideally some other characters too - this makes it very hard to crack.
Never click on a link in an email to go to a site that requires security info. They'll invariably be scams that harvest your logon data. If you think they might be genuine, go to the site directly using your internet browser, not via the link, then log on there and deal with any real issues.
Lastly, it's worth using a paid-for email address if you use it for anything important like business (and can't host your mail server yourself, that is). You'll get service standards, and much more comeback if there's a problem. It doesn't have to cost a lot, and you can register your own domain for more choice of email address (I use 1and1 for this, as they're cheap and pretty reliable; there are lots of alternatives). It isn't a good idea to rely absolutely on free ones, even if they work fine most of the time.

Moira, I've checked and your name.co.uk is still available (I haven't posted it in case there are programs scanning for these so people can nip in, register them, then sell them on!)
For example, with 1and1, you can pay £2.99 + VAT a year for the domain plus £8.28 + VAT a year for their "instant mail" package, and use an address like This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it (see here). You then also have the domain handy if you want to use it for a web site.

Edit - if you do go down this route, don't order the Symantec security software they try to lump in!