How can I stop spam which is sending to all contacts in address book?

Spam is emailing all my addresses in my address book, how do I stop this?

• Something has gotten into my address book and keeps sending my contacts spam messages with my address as the sender. My friends keep asking why am I sending them spam. I am not doing this how can I stop this from happening. It seems like some kind of spyware but I have Zone Alarm which should have caught this. No virus has been sent to destroy anything just spam to buy something.

• Answer:

  Zone Alarm cannot catch everything, so run a couple of other good anti-spyware programs, such as Spybot Search and Destroy or Trend Micro Housecall. These days, you are more likely to have had your address 'harvested' by a powerful spam bot network - they even sell addresses to other spammers for criminal intent such as gathering information through your saved mails. Act fast - you could be open to identity theft, as could your contacts. Read at least #2 an d#4 references from Tech Guru Leo Notenbloom's recent columns - they are very detailed and more helpful than ant others I had read. Once you have set up a safe, secure new account ... e-mail all your contacts apologizing, and asking (begging) them to PLEASE use safe practices in e-mails (BCC all, delete all other addresses in Forwards!)