Spammers often use legitimate accounts that don’t belong to them to send spam.  Spammers prefer to use real email addresses to send spam because these emails can more easily bypass  anti-spam filters.  If spammers somehow have gained access to your email account's username and password, they could use that information to send spam from your email address.  There are several ways that spammers can obtain your email address and password, including:

(1)Successful phishing scams frequently result in compromised accounts.  Phishing is a term used to describe false emails sent from spammers claiming to be sent from a legitimate company (for example, EarthLink or well-known banks) and asking for your username and password. These emails may look quite authentic. 

Please note that legitimate email communications from EarthLink will direct you to MyAccount or chat or ask you to call Customer Support to take the desired action on your EarthLink account.   EarthLink will never ask you for your password in an email.  

If you receive a suspicious email where personal information such as your password is requested, you can ignore and delete it or report it as spam in Web Mail.  For step by step instructions on how to report spam via webmail, please visit:  http://support.earthlink.net/articles/policy-procedures/how-to-report-fraud-junk-and-spam-emails.php.

(2) Email usernames and passwords can be acquired from security breaches suffered by other service or product providers such as the recently publicized breach suffered by Sony. If you are using the same password for your EarthLink account as other accounts that were breached, then spammers may use this information to access your EarthLink email and send spam.  

 (3) You may have a virus on your computer that allows spammers to discover your email username and password.  Please read below to learn about anti-virus procedures that will help you protect your computer.

To protect yourself, the first step is to run an anti-virus scan on your computer.  This can be done with any anti-virus program of your choice.  EarthLink offers a free anti-virus tool called Protection Control Center that can be downloaded from your MyAccount page at http://myaccount.earthlink.net.  Just click on the link under My Downloads.  We also offer industry-leading solutions from Symantec such as Norton 360 for a low monthly charge. Make sure that you update your anti-virus definitions before running a scan as it is important that you have the latest updates.

After running your anti-virus scan, you will want to immediately change your password.  Log into http://myaccount.earthlink.net to change your password.  Simply click on your email address and then click the Edit button across from Password to make a change.  We recommend that you select an 8 to 12 character password.  At a minimum, you should never use less than 6, but we highly recommend 8 to 12 characters.  Make sure you use the maximum number of characters available (currently eight characters) and that your password is not something easy to guess.  Do not reuse a previous password and avoid common passwords like trust, password, p8ssw0rd, or 1234.  It is important to change your password again after running an anti-virus scan even if you have just changed your password while talking to our support team.  Also, don’t forget to update your new password in your DSL modem or your dialer if you are using a dial-up solution.