[JodyM]

Recently I came home from a trip and, while checking my Hotmail account, saw an email in my inbox that came from myself! After opening the email and checking the header, I saw that this email had been sent to every contact in my Hotmail address book. Apparently someone had hacked my email account and then sent out a spam email. I have a couple questions.

First, how does this happen, and second, am I safe using this account after changing my password to something much harder to hack? I have already informed those to whom the spam went out to that they should not go to any of the links in the email and that for the time being they should delete any email from that Hotmail address without opening it. I have set up a new Gmail address for the time being. The real bummer here is that my Hotmail address was a paid subscription account, and it irritates me that I may be out some money because now I'm afraid to use that email account anymore.

Thanks,

JodyM

[Dave Hybrid]

Change your password to some thing decent.

An example is: 2x5w3i8q5f7w8b8n5x7c

As it is a mix of letters and numbers and does not spell a word.

Then you should be fine.

[pete21]

Originally Posted by Dave Hybrid Change your password to some thing decent. An example is: 2x5w3i8q5f7w8b8n5x7c As it is a mix of letters and numbers and does not spell a word. Then you should be fine.

i second that!! there is softwere that can crack passwords but non can crack letters/numbers mixed

[serverguy]

Changing the password is a good idea. But p@Ssw0Rd would be just as difficult to crack and would actually be possible to remember (at least for me).

Most crackers give up after they have been through all the common short words. Move on to another one.

More of a problem might be if they have taken your address book, which they can now spam with other email accounts, knowing that all the addresses are 'live'.

[JodyM]

I've got a new hacker-resistent password, but I'm going to leave my Hotmail address inactive for a couple weeks (other than occasionally checking the inbox) just to be sure the hacker hasn't been able to get back in. The good news about my addressbook is that I didn't have very many contacts in it and as I mentioned before, I've already informed them to delete any further emails from that address until further notice.

Thanks for your input.

JodyM

[Carbon]

Don't worry about it.

This is a common trick of spammers - they will spoof your own email address and CC it to yourself. You didn't send the email.

[serverguy]

If you do what it says on this page:
http://www.spamcop.com/help_with_hea...s_hotmail.html

And then paste the full headers on the emails you got sent in to a PM to me, I can probably tell you if it is spoofed or not. Don't paste it in the open forums or the spammers will soon get hold of it when they trawl the forums for email addresses.