Yahoo! Spam Problem

[The Monkey]

Need some help from you guys. My wife's Yahoo! account appears to have been compromised, though I'm not sure. Here's what's happening: her Yahoo! contacts are all getting spammed by email purportedly from her. She's received lots of emails from friends alerting her and a ton of bouncebacks to her Yahoo! address. I checked her sent mail folder and there is nothing unusual there. Further, her contact list has not been deleted. We've changed her password, but I'm trying to see what else we should do and also see what the root cause is here. I know this happens all the time and could use some advice about how to proceed.

Thanks gang.

[The Monkey]

Yeah, we are going to stop yahoo mail and go to much stronger passwords. However, is there any way to determine if this is an actual case of hacking or just spoofing (sorry if wrong terminology)?

[The Monkey]

Fuckin' internets.

[strid3r]

I would run a full scan of antivirus (ie. Microsoft Security Essentials, Avira, Avast) and antimalware (Malwarebytes, Superantispyware) software on the computers she logs into her Yahoo account from. Also, she may want to just double-check her Yahoo account settings for when you "Forget a password". It usually tells you it will send a password to your cell or another email, so just make sure there's nothing amiss there.

[tkam]

If you can get one the people telling you they are getting the spam to send you the headers from the e-mail we can tell you if it's spoofing or not.

[Currawong]

Spammers will usually pick a random email address to set as the "from" address in a compromised computer. I'd say your wife's account hasn't been compromised, but that of a friend has, resulting in this mess. You can set anything you like as the "from" address in an email, making this scam easy. This is why you often get spam from someone you don't know (but who is a friend or acquaintance of someone you know).