Fake messages sent from my plusnet email account

[#1]

My emails come into my plusnet email account and are transferred to my PC Thunderbird account. Not sure in fact how this works. It's just happened since I signed up with Plusnet.

I never send emails from my Plusnet account.

I regularly sign in though  and delete received messages on my Plusnet account.

Recently when doing this I found email messages in the SENT folder some in Russian, obviously scams.

How can I stop people getting into my Plusnet email account and sending spam messages?

[#2]

Moderator’s Note

This topic has been moved from Broadband to Email

[#3]

@sandytrains Do you have just the one email address with Plusnet? In any case, I would strongly suggest you change the account password, it appears you account has been compromised.

[#4]

Changing the email password should be the first step.
I believe that means changing @sandytrans Plusnet member centre password.
That is also the broadband password.
So if @sandytrans is using a Plusnet router, they should reset the router after changing the member centre password.

I guess it is possible that the PC hosting Thunderbird is compromised and the hackers are sending emails using Thunderbird?
Suggest running a Malware scan of the PC. Try Malwarebytes.

Richard

[#5]

I have changed my Plusnet account password but I want to change the password associated with my old freenetname account username which  appears when I log into webmail or basic webmail (seem to be two slightly different things? - Two login boxes).

But there is no way I can find to change this password.

Meanwhile rubbish  messages are appearing in my plusnet email account faster than I can delete them!

[#6]

@sandytrains Ah, so your email is not a 'Plusnet' one but a 'Freenetname' one. In that case, you will need to alter the details from within your Freenetname Member Centre, and unfortunately I understand that can be problematical. You need assistance from a Community member who knows their way around legacy accounts.

[#7]

@sandytrains 

Do I understand correctly that you have two email accounts/addresses, one is an @<personalfreenetname>.co.uk domain name, the other a standard @<accountname>.plus.com one?

If so, I believe that there are limited options over what you can do with the legacy Freenetname domain these days. However, I don't know if this extends to changing the password.

[#8]

I do seem to have two email account/ addresses.

I don't seem to be able to change passwords on either.

I also can't figure out how emails are being sent to my original freenetname mailbox.

I found the old freenetname/Madasafish page which just sends me back to the plusnet email login.

My email and domain were part of the original freenetname  offer and look to be still registered with Madasafish. They also say my registration will run out soon. I don't want to loose it!

Ideally I would like to get proper control of my domain name and long term  email address so I know whats going where.

Can Plusnet organise this?

[#9]

Reset email password

If you are not able to login to the email address using webmail, then it is likely that your email address has been identified as being compromised and has had its password changed. Where email address passwords have been changed to protect the integrity of the service, the Plusnet account password is left unchanged.

Which ISP are you with, Plusnet or one of the other / legacy vISPs?

Plusnet / Force9 / FreeOnline users can only change the password on the DEFAULT email address by changing the password on the user ACCOUNT through the user portal. You can change the password on a secondary mailbox using the Manage My Mail options in the user portal.

Brightview users (Madasafish / FreeNetName / GlobalNet / IC24 / ICScotland / Dialstart / Totalise) logging into webmail should use their full email address. Use the MAAF user portal to update the password on the default email address (change the account password) and use this MAAF guide to change the password on a secondary mailbox address. If you cannot recall the account password, you will need to contact support ... because the account password change process sends an email to the mailbox you cannot now access.

DO NOT USE THE SAME PASSWORD AGAIN for that would allow the continued exploitation of the account. The new password should be cryptic and not one used before.

Note that changing the account password will change the password used for logging on to the relevant user portal. If your email service is NOT a retained legacy service (one associated with a retired internet service account), then the password required by the router to connect to the internet will be changed too. If the router is a Hub Zero or a Hub One supplied by Plusnet it should update automatically. If not, you will need to log into the router, drop the connection, change the password yourself and reconnect.

On the assumption that the email address password has been compromised, I strongly recommend that wherever you have used that email address / password combination as access credentials to services such as Amazon, Netflix, eBay etc., that you also change the passwords on those service as well.