how do i report malware or spyware from a random person that was sent to my gmail account

Question

my computer is an asus x53e series running windows 7 home premium with a 64 bit O.S. I received an email that was talking about a possible job opportunity It had two links inside the actual message where one would go to apply for the job. when I clicked one of the two links my avast security popped up and denied permission to the link. Avast stated that malicious spyware or malware was detected. I would like to know how I can report the email AND the user that sent it to me so that he may be shut down. can you do it in gmail or is it a separate site that I need to go to?

Answer 1

The right answer would be: This depends on the country you live in and the country the spam originated from. There's legislation against spam in many countries and those usually also provide means to report spam. Since you didn't explain where you live, it's impossible to guess where YOU should report spam to.

Before reporting spam based on the country of origin, make sure though that you're positive that this email doesn't contain faked sender information which most spam does. Also, if this came from a real person who used his real name, chances are, that he has malware running on his computer that uses his mail accounts to send spam in his name without him even knowing. That's something to think about before going hog wild.

In any case, you can report spam to the host provider of the email system it was sent from. If the email advertises a website then you can try to track down the site hosting service and report the spam to them since spam also usually violates their terms of service. This will probably result in the site being shut down, but it won't stop the person behind it from moving it to a new hoster.

Last but not least, there are non-governmental organizations you can report spam to that might take action against it, but again, this depends on where you live.

You can find quite a good overview of how to deal with spam and how to report it on the following website:

http://www.spamlaws.com/reporting-spam.html

Answer 2

You don't. Long answer: there is no central authority that tracks criminal activity on the Internet. Even if there was it is a quagmire because the activity almost always comes from a country different than your own. Who's laws govern the actions? How do you contact the authorities in the source country? Will they even listen? Yeah. The development of the Internet in general has surpassed the ability of regulation to keep up with it. All you can concretely do is run your antivirus and protect yourself. Going beyond that is futile at this time.

Answer 3

Surprised no one mentioned it so far, but gmail does have a spam button.

Just select the email in question with the checkbox and that top bar will appear. Press the "Report Spam" button.