Help! Someone's hacked my hotmail!

[HeroWantage]

And is sending phishing messages to everyone in my contacts list.

I have contacted Windows support to see if they can revert the account to me, but what else should I be doing now? What will the hackers be targetting? Is there a securer e-mail service I can sign up to in the future?

Help!

This happened to me, and all I did was log in and change the password, I haven't had a problem since. I made it a much more secure password with caps and numbers as well as lower case so that would be worth doing. I did post on Facebook and let all my contacts know this had happened and that the emails were not from me.

It's possible that they might not have actually hacked into your email account. The address that emails are from is incredibly easily to fake, there's no checking on it at all. There are then numerous ways that people can get at your contact lists, those chain emails that tell you to forward them on to everyone you know are typical examples of how to harvest email addresses.

So definitely change your Hotmail password ASAP, but the damage might now have been done one way or the other with the hackers knowing your address and who you email.

Thanks Evenstar, but I can't log on, as they've changed the password and security question....and it was a secure caps and numbers password.

Have let people know on facebook, but not many of my contacts are on there.

I've been on the receiving end of this via several friends - all on Hotmail. Definitely a Hotmail problem! I'm with gmail, but maybe they all get spammed eventually, who knows?

Have now set up a new gmail account; just hoping that the Windows Solutions people come back to me soon, so that I can retrieve all of my contacts...

Two friends (husband and wife on holiday in Ireland) had this happen some months back. Someone was sending out e-mail to all their contacts from their Hotmail accounts, claiming to be stuck in Edinburgh and needing $1800, asking for Western Union tranfers. Said they were lucky to have their passports!

Fortunately all their contacts knew the couple live in England and have no need for passports nor would they fly home from Edinburgh...

Despite my reporting the accounts (once I had managed to alert the couple to see if they could get into their accounts using a computer in a library) they were suspended. Husband answered various security questions and got his account unlocked and with new password within a couple of weeks of return but not sure that his wife has even now been granted access to hers.

Seems so silly that they won't acknowledge both were infiltrated same weekend and let her have her account back. I'd never recommend them now, Google Mail might be no better but I suppose it is worth having at least one alternative e-mail address you can use and keep a list of your contacts on paper too.

Hotmail seems a little prone to this. A couple of my contacts have been hacked recently and I moved my sister to gmail 3 months back after she was hacked.

It looked like a valid email since there the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) authentication had passed - either that or someone with a hotmail account spoofed another hotmail account I guess.

Gmail does at least provide the ability to tell you if someone from a different IP address has accessed the account (it usually flags when I use Trillian on my iPod since I do that irregularly).

"Gmail does at least provide the ability to tell you if someone from a different IP address has accessed the account"

How do you do that, then? I've just had a flick through my gmail settings and haven't seen it (though i did find lots of other interesting stuff)

Under all the messages on the right side it says

You are currently using 17 MB (0%) of your 7530 MB.
Last account activity: 5 days ago on this computer. Details

On a different GMail account I see

You are currently using 1439 MB (19%) of your 7530 MB.
This account is open in 2 other locations. Last account activity: 0 minutes ago at IP 80.xx.xx.xx. Details

In either case the 'Details' link can pop up a window with info such as

Browser

• United Kingdom (92.41.48.183)

Dec 10 (5 days ago)

• indicates activity from the current session.

It should show an alert by default if there is any failed password attempt (and normally high up near the search box above your messages, in red).

Reason it mentions 'Browser' is that you could use Outlook or Thunderbird to download mail messages, so would probably say remote access or E-Mail client (not Browser).

I had line after line showing browser IP date but was awkward to duplicate here.

My hotmail (that I only use for signing up for things) was hacked too, as was my dads, recently. There seems to be a spate of it around. Luckily people realised its not from me, as I'm not likely to offer cheAP ElextroNICS!!!!

Sorry, I meant to reply but got called away for a long lunch meeting

Yeah, NetworkGuy described it. I tend to get an array of IP addresses because it gets accessed from work and home (which interestingly correspond to IP addresses in different countries!).

Most of the entries are "Browser" because they are webmail. But if I download my email to a client (outlook, eudora, etc) or access via my iTouch it comes up as "IMAP".

But generally, if google is suspicious of something you'll get a entry highlighted in red.

Oh, thanks, found it now.

Never thought of looking at the bottom of the page....