Was my gmail account hacked somehow?

Suddenly, this week I began receiving over 100 "Undeliverable Mail" notices in my gmail spam folder. With some filtering I'd cut it back to single digits but some were still getting through. I also changed my password since it appeared like my account was sending mail but that didn't stop it either. I finally just closed the account and opened a new one. The scary thing is that the spams were notifications of undeliverable mail, suggesting a spambot. My pop3, hotmail and yahoo mails are quite normal. Although I think this was probably happening at the Google server level, I still scanned my pc with NOD32, Spyware Doctor, AVG Anti-Spyware and Spy Sweeper with no malware detections. So what do you think was happening? Thank You!

 

I have gotten multiple "undeliverable" email messages in my web based email accounts on occassion. In my case, it is a likely spammer sending messages to any address that it can find on the mail server. I noticed that sometimes happen on one particular email account, then another, at varying times. Some accounts I haven't accessed in over a month can get spammed. Personally, I don't think the problem is on your PC.

 

Your account hasn't been hacked. You've only been a victim of what's called a "Joe job". The spammer doesn't use his own email address when sending their spam. Instead, they just substitute someone else's address into the "from" header and/or the "reply to" header. That way, the spammer doesn't have to put up with all the 'undeliverable mail' messages, nor run the risks of spamming with his real address. However, the phony address he placed in the "from" or "reply to" headers does get them.

It's a real frustration, but it isn't indicative of a hacked email account.