How can I stop someone who is using my email account to send out spam mail to the world?

Trojans are a type of virus that can invade your computer. Once your computer is infected, it will send out spam email from your account. You computer is now a zombie and you have no control. Changing your password will not help if it is your computer that is doing the spaming. You need current antivirus software to find the trojan and you may need a special removal software to clean up the computer after you find it. If a spamer has gotten your email address, then they can send out email with your address in the smpt header and they do not have to access your account to do this. All they have to do is claim that is their return address. Can't do anything about that one except open a new account so you don't get complaints from the recipiants of the spam email. 7 Tips to Help You Reduce or Stop Spam 1. Use a separate email address when you post messages to any public forum, such as newsgroups and mailing lists. Never use your personal email address for this purpose -- or you'll be flooded with spam. Then, you can quickly go through the email in this account to see what's spam and what isn't. And your main personal email address won't be as clogged with spam. For example, AOL users can set up a special user name for free, and use that for their postings. Then, they can just discontinue that account if they start to get too much spam. 2. Consider acquiring multiple email addresses for different purposes. This helps you to identify different sources and senders, and lets you filter more effectively. For instance, you may have one for personal use only by friends, family or colleagues that is never used to request information or to subscribe to newsletters, discussion lists, etc. Another might be used just for sales inquiries or orders, or for making online purchases. This can be arranged through your ISP, web host or through any number of online email service providers. Even free mail services like Yahoo! Mail and GMail can be used for this purpose. 3. You can subscribe to services online that provide you with disposable addresses that can be deleted if they begin to attract spam messages. You can create a unique address for each email newsletter or forum you subscribe to. Then, when an email address begins getting spam, you 'throw it away' and start using another email address. This works because the disposable email addresses actually forward to a real email address of yours. The software lets you track which addresses are getting spam, and you can just resubscribe using a new, spam-free address. For information on what you need to know about disposable addresses, visit: http://email.about.com/library/weekly/aa072002a.htm Our favorite company that offers disposable email accounts is Sneakemail. It even has a free version: http://sneakemail.com 4. Remove your email address from your website. If you list or link to your email address, you can expect to be spammed. Address-harvesting robots will spider your site and extract them. So remove them wherever possible and use web-based forms instead. This will drastically cut down the amount of spam you receive if you have a website. 5. NEVER buy anything from a company that spams. Don't visit their sites or ask for more information. (If you respond to their spams, you're encouraging them to continue spamming -- they only need a tiny fraction of responses to be profitable.) There's another reason not to buy anything from a company that spams: over 95% of spam offers are scams! In fact, not responding to spam is the single most effective way to not get scammed on the Internet. 6. Filter your email. Using filters is key to managing your email effectively. It may take a short time to figure out how to do this, but it's definitely worthwhile. For more anti-spam filtering information, visit: http://email.about.com/cs/spamfiltering/ For more on negative spam filtering, visit: http://email.about.com/library/howto/htnegativespamfilter.htm 7. Consider subscribing to a spam prevention service. We're not enthusiastic about these services, but many people find them invaluable. They range from the good to the bad to the downright ugly, and from free to fee-based. Many of these services are "challenge response" services. This means they require that people who send you email to respond by clicking, visiting a website, and/or typing in a code that only a human (not a spam bot) could do correctly. Unfortunately, many people -- and most newsletter publishers -- simply refuse to participate. That's because it requires people who are sending you legitimate email to take THEIR time to ensure YOU get email. In fact, many of us consider it rude for you to even ask. Imagine a newsletter publisher like ScamBusters with 100,000+ subscribers. If even 20% installed this kind of system, that would mean the publisher would have 20,000 challenge/response requests. If each took only half a minute, that would be 167 hours -- or more than four weeks to reply!

try to fix ur spam guard in opinions if u are using yahoo

Contact the Network Administrator/IT, then have your IP# logged, Then if a mail is sent from your IP# it is a hack, if it is not from your IP# it is a crack. Ok, First instance, If the spam is comeing from your IP# that means that a virus code, possible spam bot is on your machine, and will spread through the entire network, so the IT and NA should be alerted. Second instance, Some one has a keylogger installed on your machine, dont freak out, there is one in IE6,IE7, and most every program on most every computer, some are ok, some are malicious. The spammer just checks the logs, notices the password change and makes an adjustment to match, actually this can all be done with a program. But here is the key, it will be a Unique IP# that has a DNS, maybe a floating IP# but iot is traceable. There is not one active computer on the WWW that cannot be pinpointed 15 seconds after it logs on.

Tell them to stop.

They probably are not actually using your account but instead are spoofing it so it looks like it's from you when it's not. Or Your PC could have a mailing virus that is sending mail out from your PC. Or You have a password steeler on your PC which is sending them your password whenever you change it. Make sure you have a very up to date antivirus and scan your PC to be sure.