IM spam or severe?

My cousin left town and I'm getting nightly spam IM's to visit links. I'm also getting an occasional spam email from a niece of mine, that also never sent them.

Whats happened? Getting spam from someone unkown isn't strange,, but these 2 contacts are people I know and worry their computer has been to some degree compromised.

Both acknowledged they had nothing to do with either the IM or the email.

What can it be?

ps. I just found out my cousin that I got the im's from didnt even have his computer on the time, he was at disney world, when I got the im's,,,,

 

Another thing is they might have fallen victim to scams, ie. using a service wich promises to check who of their contacts has blocked them in MSN.

They don't need to be online to send messages/emails if they have given their logins to someone else. They might want to consider changing their passwords.

 

Now I'm getting emails from my cousin every day.


If my computer were to be used for sending spam to my address book, I would've heard it from someone as they are people I know and keep in touch with.


This cousin of mine unlike me, doesn't do a damn thing to protect himself. He doesn't have any software protection, surfs any kind of site and is dumb enough to open any attachment sent his way, put his password on a public computer or anything else ANYONE else would know better not to do.


I'll just suggest him to change his password.

 

It could have been anyone who had both your email address and your cousin's in their address book. Spam software randomly picks sender and recipient addresses from its list. That's why you frequently get spam from yourself. Additionally, spammers may send test email to millions of made-up addresses at major corporations and ISPs, and see who replies. Bottom line -- just delete the spam. There's no point in trying to figure it out. Of course, spreading the word that everyone should play safe online is always good -- just not as part of an accusation.