Expert: Carolyn Meinel - 3/7/2011

Question
QUESTION: Computer sends out e-mails about teeth whitening to all my contact. Running Windows XP Pro. Was using MSN and their Mail and More. Computer was running slow. Had tech speed up computer and am now using Mozilla and Hotmail. computer is faster but both services do this. MSN has been removed.

ANSWER: Those spam emails might not be coming from your computer. Most spam Trojans keep their activities secret from the owner of the infected computer. Instead, they forge the address of another person than the owner of the infected computer. So hopefully you don't have an infected computer. Here's how we can find out for certain.

Have your friends gotten any more spam emails with your email address? If they are continuing to receive spam with your address, could you please get a friend to give you a copy of a spam email, with complete headers, and send both this and one of your legitimate emails to the same friend with complete headers. From these two emails I should be able to determine for sure whether the spam came from your computer.

How to get complete headers depends upon what email client your friend uses. If he or she needs instructions, please let me know what email client he or she uses.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: May be some time before I can do this. It is the first time it has happened for a couple or three months. First time with Hotmail.

Answer
What email provider was the spam sender using this time?

Have you contacted technical support at your email provider? The more information you can give me, the easier it will be to determine whether your computer is infected, or whether someone is forging your addresses on spam sent from somewhere else.

Also, what computer security software are you using?