Hi there folks,

Somehow my email address either got hacked or something but if anybody (I'm speaking more to the providers than my fellow hobbyists) got any random crap from my email address (something along the lines of a malicious link in the email subject and/or body), I apologize and please, for obvious reasons, don't click on it.  I've changed my password so hopefully that should be all set.  Nothing else seems to be off thankfully.

My email is through GMail, so maybe others who have GMail can shed some light on this?

It seems you have the problem under control, but just to make sure:
Just Look at the bottom of the screen "Last account activity"  and click on "Details" when you login!
Make sure all IP addresses are accounted for.

Also, you didn't explain the symptom - what made you conclude the address got hacked?  Did someone receive an unacknowledged e-mail from your address?

That's what it looked like and when I checked the last account activity, there were a few locations that made no sense: France and United States (DC).  Granted, I was using the email address via my cell phone, but obviously I wasn't in either location.

It seemed like something spam related was being sent out, but Google was blocking it and then put a block on my account until I verified it.  So perhaps the account was hacked for a bit, but then again, it might have been just something in my spam folder or something that caused this.

Situation is under control though, so no worries.  But I figured I'd let folks know in case they got spam from my address.

Nope, no virus or malware on my laptop; Symantec Endpoint Protection is pretty neurotic in finding things and a Malwarebytes scan got me nothing.  Considering how I do work in IT now and am in school again for Information Security, if I didn't keep things on the up and up, what good am I at what I do.

But the suggestion was certainly more than welcome!

Actually, as we speak, Symantec is running it's weekly scan that I can't ever cancel, so let's see what it finds...hopefully nothing.