Email Being Used For Spam

I was told by a friend that she was getting spam email from my address. I have also started getting spam from email addresses that I know are actual addresses of people I know. I have found emails in my Drafts folder showing that there are spam emails waiting to go out from my email account.
What's going on and how do I stop it? I don't want people to think I'm spamming them, or to stop opening my real emails because they think it's all spam.

Sir, sounds like your email has been hacked. Step one - go in and change your password immediately. Step 2, contact your email provider... Let them know what is going on.

Good luck,
PPE

FYI: Lately, every one of my gentlemen friends who had a Hotmail account saw it hacked, and I, and everybody on their address lists, received spam and scam emails. I'm still getting Net trash from a couple of fellows even AFTER they closed their accounts. I would stay away from Hotmail like the Bubonic Plaque.

And one of my friends has a yahoo email address and this is happening to him... stay away from Yahoo email too...

I will say is is much more of an issue of pc security than the mail prouder. Making sure you are using a good antivirus app and making your password is hard to break are going to help keep you secure.

PPE

Another possibility...

You have a virus that has gone through your contact list in order to spread itself through e-mails. I would suggest that you do a virus scan and a malware scan.

This is what I do, in my Address book for Outlook, and any web-based site, I make a Contacts called "1AAA@aaa.com, 2BBB@bbb.com, 3CCC@ccc.com.

Using Outlook is POISON
I used to use Eudora except now my ISP changed too much so now I use their Web Mail.
When replying to 'rebates' and such get a 'throwaway' address so when they SELL your E mail address you just toss it after getting your rebate or keep using it ONLY for rebates and such
GUARD your real E mail address like you guard your Social Security Number (all right a bit extreme) but you get the idea

I changed my password and haven't seen any more of the spam crap coming in or out. This is just my hobby email, not my real one, but there are a lot of "hobby friends" why have the address, so I didn't want to change it unless I had to.
Thanks for the advice.

I would still suggest you scan your computer within an inch of it's life to make sure they do not have any malicious software still there. Glad that you stopped it for now.

I amways suggest a password with upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters if you can. Make it as hard as possible. Birthdays, kid's names, pets, etc. are a Bad idea.

PPE

Thanks for the advice. I regularly (like several times a week) run
AdAware
AVG
Super AntiSpyware
CCleaner

Somehow all of these failed to detect and clean whatever was there.

I suggest adding in Trend Micro Housecall. I use it regularly and it catches things that others miss. Always used layered defenses. It is also free and web based. Small Applet download.

PPE

I went to the Trend website to download Housecall, and it gives me 2 choices, 32 bit and 64 bit. How do I know which one to use?

Most computers use 32 bit Operating Systems...

And the 32 bit should run on a 64 bit OS, though less efficiently. You can loo your computer up on the manufacturers web site and it should tell you if it is 32 or 64 bit.

PPE

Thanks. I have it downloaded.