Sudden uptick in one particular kind of spam, arriving at more than one of my mail accounts

Factual Questions
1

I’ve recently experienced a very sudden increase in a specific kind of spam, arriving in my personal mailbox, my Hotmail account, my Yahoo account and one or two others.

[ul]
[li]The emails comprise just a link, a few blank lines and the name of the purported sender (haven’t followed any links, but they’re not the same each time and they look quite conspicuously spammy).[/li][li]The apparent sender (I realise this can be easily spoofed) has varied, but more often than not, it purports to be the name of someone I do actually know. In some recent cases, the purported sender is my own address.[/li][li]Not all of the purported senders know each other though (so it’s unlikely they were all copied in on some message that got harvested for addresses or something)[/li][/ul]

Is this just something that’s widespread and new at the moment (like the fake casino spam that was doing the rounds a month or two ago)? Or is it evidence of one or more of my contacts having been hacked?

2

Also (and maybe ominous): a vast number of delivery failure reports in my Yahoo Inbox, talking about messages I never sent, but clearly related to these spam links.

I guess I’d be seeing these as responses to messages where the from address had been spoofed as me.

I’ve changed my Yahoo password as a precaution, but it’s been a really long time since I even used that account - and I’ve not divulged my credentials by falling for any spoof/phishing emails.

3

Yahoo has had a number of security related issues recently - resulting in contacts lists being compromised and vast amounts of spam generated. It is also not just yahoo email addresses - many isps use Yahoo as an email provider, and so their customers have been hacked.

4

Yeah, you naughty person, you. I’ve received two spam messages from YOU in the last two days! :eek:

Well, they were from “Mange Tout.” Just hyperlinks to an advertising site.

Didn’t know what it’s about, but your post makes it more understandable.

5

I think it must be this - my Yahoo account is the one on my SDMB profile, so that would also account for the spam samclem received purporting to be from me.