A virus in my Hotmail or hacked - help!

[emc]

Hello

in the last hour my hotmail account has sent numerous unsolicited emails to everyone in my address book - what is this? Is it a virus or have I been hacked or something? How do I stop it? Any help greatly appreciated - thanks v much

[ClareC]

Change your password ASAP.

Use something with a combination of upper case, lower case and numbers to minimise risk of compromise.

[HAL9000]

It could be a virus or a hack - it depends on exactly what happened? Were you logged in to hotmail at the time? Do the unsolicited emails have attachments? Did you open (or read) an email with an attachment recently?

Before it (whatever "it" is) can be stopped, it has to be properly diagnosed: more information is required.

[right-clicking]

If you have not run one yet, virus scan your machine!! it might just be spyware, Hotmail is fairly secure but gets a lot of attacks as it's the most popular email server. as Clarec said use a combination of keystrokes. The most easiest is to use a sentence of words as this is the most secure. below is the link to hotmail, hope this helps

http://windowslivehelp.com/solution.aspx?solutionid=6ea0c7b3-1473-4176-b03f-145b951dcb41

[Otta]

This happened to my yahoo account over Christmas, all my contacts got some email about iPhones or something.

Changed password, and nothing has happened since.

[ultraburner]

This happned to me too. I think it was accessing my account from an unsecure computer that caused it, not a virus on my home pc.

Changed password sorted it for me too.

[Undisputedtruth]

Have you've been looking at naughty websites?

[Otta]

Ha ha, I know I hadn't on the brand new family PC, but facebook was recently hit by a worm, and I wonder if it was to do with that.

[Sue]

Has happened to me in the past on AOL, I changed my password and have had no problems since. Touch wood :)

Although AOL (or possibly the receiving server) blocked some of my outgoing emails for a while afterwards which was a bit of a nuisance, but it was only for a matter of days.

[DulwichFox]

You Probably recieved a mail containing a Script...

When you opened it the script ran on your PC / Laptop that read your mail .CSV file.

The .csv file contains a list of all your contacts and is used to copy all your contacts

to your new mail if you change your Mail client at any time.

Like Windows mail to Gmail.

Generally It is more of a nuscience than a threat.

As all your recipients will send it to their contacts if they open the mail.

You will not recieve a mail back from your contacts as mail clients have built in protection

to stop 'Circular' mail responses.

Changing your password will not stop anyone sending you a mail, unless you have blocked

the individual.

Often the mail will appear to come from yourself as sender details can be set to anything.

Just be carefull which mails you open.

Fox.

[Annette Curtain]

Eww..

"You got fleas"

*crosses fingers*

[Google]

Theres numorous ways it can happen, especially free e-mail accounts.

as a few already mentioned,

1. you may have clicked some site that is bogus and it will istall a script very quick.

2. it could be someone else email account thats infected and has your contact to jump on,

3. you may have a keylogger installed like a script which will send all your key strokes and login details to the bogus person. which is not good as a key logger will send every site you have a login to.

4. there is spider bot programes about, so if someone knows your email these programes have the whole dictionary in them and will repeatedly input a password and enter it automaticaly, so as mentioned choose a password with numbers aswell as words, lower and upercase.

5. your ip address is inside your email when you mail or join someone, these idiots can use your ip in special software so they can work from your computer.

its best to have good security on pc and stick to sites you know are safe, you can get or download mccaffe site advisor , it will warn you about the site in a google search, or if unsure go to the www.whois.com website to get every internet sites address and details, care full of gaming sites there full of bugs.

but wouldnt hang about wondering especially if you do online banking, etc.

well thats if you have windows, but i hear the mac book dont need virus guards there that good, unless there targeting them now.

REGARDS hope you fix it.

if it was me, i would re install windows after you backup your data, then install security suite then change all your paswords, just incase you do have a keyloger etc. or go to a computer you knows ok and change quickly.

[KalamityKel]

BEFORE you change your password you should check your Sent box - if the offending item is in there delete it and THEN change your password.

Dont just use letters (case sensitive) and numbers but also include some symbols. For example:

Ka!/\mityKel12

A bit excessive I know but you get the idea :)

[emc]

hello thanks for all the advice, much appreciated, I have now changed my password four times but every day my hotmail is still sending out unsolicited emails - arrggghhh! Sorry,there is so much advice on here can someone just tell me definitively what to do? - in fact think some of you have already just need to get the time to sort it out. thanks all.

[Huguenot]

Well, you should also be aware that it's possible the spam isn't coming from you at all. If they've already got your address book first time around they can keep sending spam and just make it look as if it's coming from you...

If you want to know if this is the case, temporarily suspend the account and see if the mail keeps arriving at your friend's account.

If it does you're no longer the problem.

As you can see, there is NO definitive 'what to do' - just a series of things you can try.

[El Pibe]

"Change your password ASAP.

Use something with a combination of upper case, lower case and numbers to minimise risk of compromise."

"Dont just use letters (case sensitive) and numbers but also include some symbols. For example:

Ka!/\mityKel12 "

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/password_strength.png

[DulwichFox]

As I have said before, Changing your password does not stop people sending you mail...

This problem seems very commom with Hotmail.

Try running Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool.

Details.

Fox

[Bluerevolution]

Stop running everything, download www.malwarebytes.org and run. clear dns cache and reset passwords. Also download microsoft security essentials- all free and the dogs danglys !

[MrCheeky]

keyloger

[Google]

if you have hotmail you have to activate the https mode in options.

or if you havent when you are in inbox look at the web address it will say http:// www hot.... you need to add the letter S after http so it reads https:// www hotma... which is the unhackable version for hotmail.

google mail autamaticaly has this function

not sure with ymail you would have to check by adding a letter S as described if it lets you do that you know theres a feature in your back office/ controll pannel someware.

hotmail dont do this autamaticaly cause it stops people using some of there most used services, but you can do it by hand if need be.

i use to hate spending hours an hours searching and scanning , now all my stuff gets backed up autamatically to a usb stick, and programes run off stick too, any problems press of the button i have re installed windows and virus gaurd in 2 hours,