Is There a Cyber Security Expert Around?

[bad company]

In January my mobile bill was inflated as I’d apparently received 2 premium rate messages and called a ‘service number’ whatever that is. I resolved that by setting my credit limit (over the allowance) to zero.

I also changed my email password last month. Today my sister received a junk email purporting to come from me. It’s apparently gone to several recipients I’ve emailed in the past.

I’m in a no phone reception area at the moment but ASAP I’ll change the passwords again.

Anything else I should be doing?

[HantsRat]

Is the email actually from your email address or have they spoofed it? The receiver can check the email headers.

[eeLee]

anyone anywhere can likely submit email into the mail routing of the Internet that appears to come from someone else. No password is needed.

[bad company]

HantsRat said:

Is the email actually from your email address or have they spoofed it? The receiver can check the email headers.

Spoofed, not from my address but somehow they accessed email addresses I’d been sending to.

[Order66]

The phone bill and email issues are most likely unrelated.

The short code premium 60109 looks like DPD. If you do a "live chat" with them on your phone this is the result.

The other 2 numbers you should check your outbound call list and if not there query with your phone provider.


For the email - likely someone's email account has been compromised and their contacts scraped. However, this can be the recipient that was compromised. If the recipients of the spoofed email were all on a single email or are common contacts to each other this isn't uncommon. However, if they were unconnected recipients and all received and email looking like it came from you it was possibly you who was compromised. You need to check all your devices and ensure passwords are secure and anti-malware is up to date.