'YOU'VE GOT TROJANS!'

I can't believe I fell for that old 'log in here to view your pictures' scam, but I did... just days after my son got our account TOS'd for spamming over 600 emails... while he was asleep!  Did I change my password immediately?  No... I just 'assumed' that the page hadn't loaded because my computer was already over loaded.  A few days later... poof!  I get a message from MAILER-DAEMON citing a 'delivery problem' with some emails I never sent.  Finally a light went on in my head, but the damage was already done.  Later that night my account was once again TOS'd for spamming.

So... here's what I have pieced together. 

On the 6th of June my son received an email stating that he had unviewed pictures in his You've Got Pictures inbox.  He logged in to the link but the page didn't load.  He X'd out and forgot about it.

On the 9th of June our account was suspended for spam coming from my son's account.  The spam email was entitled 'You have unviewed pictures in your inbox'.

Our account was restored, but a full virus scan keeps getting interrupted and is not completed.

On the 8th I receive an email entitled 'You have (6) pictures'.  Unaware that my son had received a similar email just days earlier I open the email, try to log on, it fails, I forget about it.

On the 13th of June I get 3 returned emails from MAILER-DAEMON, which I never sent in the first place.  A quick trip to my sent box of my email shows that there are more emails that I never sent.   I immediately do a full virus scan.  There are approximately 20 alerts, all the same type of Trojan but on 3 different accounts.  I delete them, remove my restore points, empty my temporary internet and history files, restart my computer a number of times, restart again, reset my restore points...

And get TOS'd.

After restoring my account and changing all the passwords... again... I edited the blocked words list in all of our email controls to  reject any mail containing: [You've Got ( * ) Pictures!] and [unviewed pictures]. 
A word of caution:  Don't get complacent.  When AOL says they will never ask for your password or billing information... they mean it.  You do not need a password to see your You've Got Pictures.  If you got the email in the first place then you're already logged in to AOL, you don't need to log in a second time.  If you are prompted to do so, chances are its a bad email.  Delete it!  Quite honestly I knew better and I'm mad at myself for falling for it.

 

This is a screenshot of what a YGP email should look like.  Please note the reminder up at the top of the email.  Now that you know what to look for, if you still open and log on to a phoney you almost deserve to get a stinkin' virus (like I did! Grrrr!).