Email malware

[Bob.marion]

I have recently opened an Email from a friend which must have been infected with some malware. The consequence is
that random emails are now being sent to the recipients on my iPad contact list despite having deleting the original mail from my inbox. Has anyone any experience of using ClamXav to scan their IPads for malware to resolve such problems?
Has anyone any alternative suggestions please.

 

[giradman]

Hi Bob.... - welcome to the forum! First, ClamXav is a program that you can run on Mac OS X, i.e. there is not an iPad version; also, the main reason to have the app on an Apple Mac is to scan email messages for attachments that may contain malware that could infect those running Windows. Second, I'm not aware that there is any malware 'in the wild' that will run on iOS, so hard to understand your issue at the moment.

But please provide some additional information: 1) What iPad model do you own and what iOS is installed? 2) Is your iPad 'jailbroken'? 3) Did the email sent by your friend have an attachment that you opened? 4) Was the email sent to your mail server, such as Yahoo, Gmail, or other and do you have a computer that also handles your emails? and 5) If the latter question is true, is your computer a Windows machine? Just trying to determine the source of emails being sent from your 'contacts' - the iPad just seems quite unlikely. Well let us know and hopefully others will 'chime in' - good luck! Dave

 

[Bob.marion]

Thanks for your quick response Dave. 1)I have an IPad 2 running on IOS 7.0.4. No it is not Jailbroken. 3) If my memory servers me right I clicked on a link in my fiends Email. 4) I have aWindows Live mail account with Hotmail address and yes I have a desktop computer on which I can access my Emails but this is something I rarely do.5) the computer is a Windows machine with Windows 7 installed and Norton antivirus software. Hope this provides enough info to enable some suggestions to be made. Regards Bob.

 

[giradman]

Thanks for your quick response Dave. 1)I have an IPad 2 running on IOS 7.0.4. No it is not Jailbroken. 3) If my memory servers me right I clicked on a link in my fiends Email. 4) I have aWindows Live mail account with Hotmail address and yes I have a desktop computer on which I can access my Emails but this is something I rarely do.5) the computer is a Windows machine with Windows 7 installed and Norton antivirus software. Hope this provides enough info to enable some suggestions to be made. Regards Bob.

Hi again Bob - thanks for the details! Since Mar-April '13, wife & I have been on Macs (our old PC is in a back bedroom), but we had XP on our old computer w/ Norton - I would go ahead and just run a Norton check on your Windows machine, probably won't find anything but who knows? Since your iPad is simply retrieving emails from your Windows/Hotmail account, you may want to sign in there directly to see if all is in order (e.g. spam checks). Finally, if none of this helps please provide some more details on 'random emails' being sent - spam or other, just a few recipients, or other that my help? Let us know - Dave

 

[col.bris]

My thoughts are as follows .
Close down the hot mail account and open a new gmail account which is much safer. One can direct hot mail accounts to gmail but that is your choice. Hot mail is known to be a problem child when spam is concerned. I personally donot recommend any of my clients to use it. Life is to short in my mind it is like a bank if the bank does not perform then close the account go to another bank. Problem with hot mail it attaches all your contacts and forwards and sends the spam. This has and can destroy relationships and your business contacts as the end user cuts you off.

 

[Bob.marion]

Thank you all for your suggestions, they have given me food for thought. I have run a Norton scan on the Windows computer with nothing needing attention but a few cookies. I have decided for the moment, having tried to close all the doors, to do some watchful waiting to see if the problem persists before taking the more drastic actions of changing accounts. Meanwhile please be assured that your comments and suggestions are very warmly welcomed. Kind regards Bob.

 

[Bob.marion]

Apologies for posting in the wrong forum, this should obviously should have been in a general forum. At the time of posting I was asking a specific question on the experience of using some software on the IPad 2. My mistake sorry. Bob.

 

[2112]

This was an interesting thread, glad Bob got some resolution. I'd like to ask a question before this thread ends. I use VirusBarrier app to scan email attachments in the hopes of not forwarding anything. This app does not scan the iPad itself! Only email and claims it can scan a web site for the usual bad stuff if you enter three things, address / server name / level. Where or how does one find the server name for a given web site? Still waiting for a reply from app developer, so while I wait ...