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Help Me - Hotmail Account!

janninew
janninew Posts: 3,781 Forumite
in Techie Stuff
Hi

I hope this is the right place to post but I need urgent advice!

I have a hotmail account and tonight I have gone in and during the last hour there have been lots of e-mails sent from my account? How is this happening? It was still happening when I was in my account! I have had to delete all my contacts to stop this, luckily I have them all saved on my work e-mail address! I'm a little concerned as these e-mails have been sent to my boss, my solicitor and all my friends. What can I do to stop this! Also when I was in my hotmail account and tried to click on the sent e-mails to see what they were my laptop kept shutting down! Is this a virus, do i need to warn all the people in my contact list?

Thanks for any advice as I'm really worried!

Janninew
:heart2: Newborn Thread Member :heart2:

'Children reinvent the world for you.' - Susan Sarandan

Comments

  • captainprincess
    captainprincess Posts: 341 Forumite
    That happened to me and it was a virus. very annoying I did the same thing and deleted all the contacts!!
    OH fixed (i'm useless with computers!) so sorry don't know how, but it was ok once he sorted it :rolleyes:
  • captainprincess
    captainprincess Posts: 341 Forumite
    oh forgot, yeah tell people in contacts because they wil have receieved an e-mail, I warned them noit to open
  • Mavens
    Mavens Posts: 16 Forumite
    Hey!

    Right, this actually happened to me a little while back. It was actually my (deceased!) dad's account, which caused quite a lot of trauma for a few people in his contact list...

    In my case, someone had hacked his account, and sent out an affiliate link in a spam mail. He or she had also changed my account password, and so I couldn't actually get into Hotmail. I used the security question and backup email I'd submitted to reset, then removed the weird sig that had been added, and sent out an apology email. I used a more secure password in future :).

    Hotmail itself won't be infected with a virus, though potentially your computer could be. There are two possibilities - one is a program that remote controls your PC, one is a type that instead steals personal data. For the first type, make sure you've got a free antivirus on your PC - I'd download AVG Free - and run it. When that's clean, go and get an anti-spyware program - Spybot is a good one, or Spyware Search & Destroy - and run that until you're clean there too. Then go back into your Hotmail account, check your signature file is clean, and change your password. Then you should be OK and good to go.

    Then make sure you're using Firefox or Chrome, and switch to Gmail ;).

    Hope that helps,

    Ben
    We were both young, when I first saw you.
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