I seem to be sending out spam to my friends, how can I stop this?

Your account got compromised. First change your password. Account help.http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/acct/in%E2%80%A6 for just about anything to do with your account. Then run anti Virus and Anti Spyware. Should be fine then.

I had the same problem and had to write to Yahoo about it.

But here is their response to me:

Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Mail.

It appears you may have received a return message due to a worm virus.

This does not mean that your computer has been infected with the virus,

but most likely a computer that contains your email address within its

address book has.

These particular, viruses spread by sending users an email from a

seemingly reliable source asking them to open an attachment containing

the virus. Once a user contracts the virus, it then spreads itself by

sending out new infected messages using contacts from within their

address book.

Most email system administrators are aware of these particular types of

viruses and have set up protective measures to prevent others from being

infected. Because of these measures put in place by this particular

domain, the virus attempt at spreading using your email address failed.

Please know that there is a possibility of receiving further return

messages similar to what you have reported. Yahoo! is unable to prevent

these messages from generating, however if you are a Yahoo! user and

would like to direct them out of your Inbox, you may want to utilize our

filter feature to do so.

Filters automatically sort your incoming messages into the folders of

your choice, according to the rules that you set up. The benefit of

filters is that you don't need to read through each message to decide

where it goes. For example, you could create a filter so that messages

such as the failure deliveries you have received filter automatically to

your Trash folder. If you are interested in utilizing this feature,

please visit the link below for instructions:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/manage/

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Mail.

Regards,

Chelsea

Yahoo! Customer Care

76610589

For assistance with all Yahoo! services please visit:

http://help.yahoo.com/

Original Message Follows:

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Please make this stop. I get this everyday at least 2-3 times.

Usually the spammer has obtained the password with phishing spam. Change the password. While you are in your account settings check for tampering with your alternate contact email address . The spammer could use that to obtain new passwords.

Abstain from clicking links within spam. Some can run malicious scripts that instruct logged in webmail to spam the address book.

Oh, don't bother with scanning and such. I've been having the same problem and it seems to be something online. Just change your password for a while and it should be fine, that's what I did and I haven't had it happen in quite some time.