email being used for spamming

Hello,
I'm not quite sure what section to put this in
My friend got a spam email in her inbox, from her own email address today
We're assuming this means that her email is being used for spamming
Now I'm wondering if we are correct in assuming this, and if there is a way to prevent it?
Is it connected to the computer, so a clean reinstall would do the trick, or is it connected to the email address?
Thanks
El

Hello,

Quite possibly your friend is a victim of a "joe job" where someone's legitimate email address is forged on spam. Unfortunately, there is not really too much one can do about this, other than waiting for the spam to die down.

Another possibility might be the spammer is setting the To: and From: fields in the email to the same address in the hope that it will be more likely to get past any anti-spam filters.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky