strange things in the inbox of my outlook 6

[polly]

recently, (the last couple of weeks) i have noticed
several e-mails informing me that the my mail could not be
sent.

the strange thing is, it's not mail i've sent. it seems
to be spam-type mail. how did i send mail that i didn't
send? how can someone else be using my e-mail account?

is this a common problem?

[Matt DuBois [MSFT]]

Most of the time, this happens because of one of the following reasons:

1) You have a virus that emails itself using Outlook or Outlook Express to
your friends.
2) A spammer is faking emails to look like they come from you. This happens
more frequently with easy to guess account names on well known domains
(microsoft.com and aol.com for instance), but is not out of the realm of
possibility for any ISP.

You can rule out number 1, for the most part, if a full virus scan with
updated virus definitions comes out clean, you run with your virus scanner
always on, AND if you don't open email attachments.

From what you describe, I'm guessing it is number 2 because you say it seems
to be spam. If you don't recognize the addresses it is going to and it
doesn't have any attachments, that is a pretty good bet since most viruses
use your address book for the addresses and send themselves as an
attachment.

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.


"polly" > wrote in message
...
> recently, (the last couple of weeks) i have noticed
> several e-mails informing me that the my mail could not be
> sent.
>
> the strange thing is, it's not mail i've sent. it seems
> to be spam-type mail. how did i send mail that i didn't
> send? how can someone else be using my e-mail account?
>
> is this a common problem?