Junk email addresses appearing in address book

Question

For some reason I have tons of junk email addresses appearing in my Mail address -- I have no idea how they got there. Here are just two examples, there are hundreds:
Alexis Eldridge
[email protected]
or
Gallo Poole
[email protected]
Does anyone know why this is happening and how to prevent it? Thanks!

Answer 1

Well, yes, maybe. I'm a little paranoid -- I download in the regular user account, scan with clamxav, drop the scanned download into the admin dropbox, fast-user-switch to the admin account, move the download to an "installers" folder that I maintain, and install from the admin account. Log out and back in to the standard account. I guess, yeah, if you are doing forty separate software updates and upgrades every day, a process like mine is a little problematic. On the other hand, the Applications folder isn't writeable from a standard user account without authenticating as an administratively privileged user and I just don't do that.
Actually, that may not quite be true. Although I don't operate that way, you could probably install from the standard user account by authenticating the installer as an admin user from within the standard user account. That kind of defeats the purpose, anyways, if the standard user account has been compromised by a hidden applescript keystroke logger or something, if such thing were to exist.
Having a separate administrator and standard user account are a trade-off that you have to decide upon: are the added safety and security practices worth a loss of user experience convenience? Once you figure out, if you are able to figure out, how your Address Book started getting loaded up with rogue email addresses, you might be better able to make that determination for your own situation. Page 33 of the snow leopard security guide (http://images.apple.com/support/security/guides/docs/SnowLeopardSecurity_Configv10.6.pdf) recommends having separate administrator and daily use accounts. But, in the end, that's your call. The guide tells you how to lock your computer down so tightly that it's almost worthless.
With regards to anti-malware, your best bet is to see what respected sites like macworld and others have to say, and just do some google searches. I'm in no position to make a recommendation. With clamxav, which is what I use, the price is right but I can't say how proactive a freeware/donationware anti-malware entity might be when that new occasional Mac malware comes out.
While I have suggested you performing an anti-MacMalware scan, that may or may not resolve your issue, and offer up some thoughts on future operating practices that really don't help you now, I can only wish you good luck on solving your AddressBook problem. Please post back when you do, I'm sure everyone here would like to be made aware of what and how it happened, and what they can do to do to prevent it.