Girlfriends Hotmail Account Hijacked - How?

thescouselander

We just noticed this morning that my girlfriend's Hotmail account has been hijacked and a spammer has sent adverts to everyone in her address book. She has taken all the precautions recommended to prevent this reoccurring but I am at a loss as to how the spammers got her login details to begin with.


She only uses my computer to log in with - the computer in question is a Mac running Snow Leopard and she uses Safari for browsing. As unlikely as a virus is under this configuration I have checked as far as possible and cannot find any evidence of Malware or Viruses.


Any ideas whats going on here?

DCFC79

Well she got the details from somewhere so has she accessed her account from another computer that isnt secure eg a maybe a friends computer

exup

Although it is possible that someone may have got hold of the password by a trojan, or someone has watched her type it in, or its a common password etc.
There are also ways of getting a password sent to you if you registered on a website and your email (hotmail) address is your login name. All you need to do is request your password for the site to be resent to your email address (forgotten your password?). Then the spammer intercepts your email and gets your password. If you use the same password for the website as your hotmail address then there is a security risk.

But its more likely a virus/malware etc that has got into the computer and is sending to everyone in the address book. It may have come from one of her contacts aswell.

What antivirus / antimalware are you using?

Wherryman

Same happened to me twice last month, my guess is it's an internal Hotmail problem rather than someone hijacking accounts, very annoying all the same.

truthman007

I also heard there is phising term, not sure how spammers use that technique to get the account and password details.

gaming_guy

logging in through other computers or anonymous proxies can lead to password sniffing and the attacker getting the account details.

also (untrustworthy) web based MSN/WLM clients or 'click here to login & see who has blocked you' type things can lead to people giving out their password

UnhappyBunny_2

She could have clicked a phishing scam. Phishing is where a website comes up which looks like the real thing, and you put in your username and password etc, and you may log in as fine or it will just redirect you to the main website, but the point is that the scammer has just gotten your personal details. Devious stuff!

To stay away from this don't click links which are not familiar, even if it is sent by friend or family, because they may have already be infected and its a contagious cycle.

thescouselander

exup wrote: »

Although it is possible that someone may have got hold of the password by a trojan, or someone has watched her type it in, or its a common password etc.
There are also ways of getting a password sent to you if you registered on a website and your email (hotmail) address is your login name. All you need to do is request your password for the site to be resent to your email address (forgotten your password?). Then the spammer intercepts your email and gets your password. If you use the same password for the website as your hotmail address then there is a security risk.

But its more likely a virus/malware etc that has got into the computer and is sending to everyone in the address book. It may have come from one of her contacts aswell.

What antivirus / antimalware are you using?

I generally don't bother with anti virus / anti malware as I am using a Mac but I installed some this morning just to check the computer out - nothing was found.

I'm not sure it could be phishing either as she only accesses her mail using Mac Mail and doesn't usually use the web Hotmail Web interface.

aliEnRIK

Hotmails one of the least safe email systems you can use. I have one, but its very rarely used. Id recommend a change of accounts (I use gmail personally)

thescouselander

aliEnRIK wrote: »

Hotmails one of the least safe email systems you can use. I have one, but its very rarely used. Id recommend a change of accounts (I use gmail personally)

I agree, I have tried to persuade her to change to a proper email account but she doesn't want to unfortunately.

aliEnRIK

thescouselander wrote: »

I agree, I have tried to persuade her to change to a proper email account but she doesn't want to unfortunately.

So shes happy to get hacked?

Her choice I suppose.............