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Strange emails, not from who they say they are?

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Old 30 March 2017, 09:20 AM
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alcazar
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Default Strange emails, not from who they say they are?

Had a few of these, recently. They come up as being from someone in my list of contacts, but the return addresses aren't anything like.

They address me familiarly, like the contact would, and include a link I "might find interesting".

The links don't seem to do anything, although I've only opened one, and deleted all others. I can't remember if the one I opened was before my computer crashed and had to be wiped and rebooted.

Any advice?

Virgin Media, emails arrive via my hotmail account, computer running windows 10 now, with Avast added.
Old 30 March 2017, 10:10 AM
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dpb
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Had something very similar yesterday . Deleted
Old 30 March 2017, 10:11 AM
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Don't open attachments, Ever! Your, or your friends contact list has been infected, when you open the attachment your contact list gets infected, and passes it on. All Your details are then accessible.
Only thing you can do is what you do already, checking actual address.
I'm sure an IT specialist will correct this, but that's the gist of it. We had it after Talktalk was hacked, had to change email address.
Old 30 March 2017, 03:50 PM
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Even the return address can be spoofed (quite easily actually), so that is not a security measure.
Old 30 March 2017, 05:04 PM
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alcazar
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The return address goes nowhere. I tried it with the first one.
Old 30 March 2017, 08:58 PM
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I received an email the other day which included my full name and address with a word document attached with my full name as the attachment, I didn't open it but how the heck did they get my full name and address.
Old 31 March 2017, 08:56 AM
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Director somewhere? Electoral role?, DVLA enquiry? Stolen post?




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