hotmail account being used to spam contacts

googler

Store your contacts somewhere other than within Hotmail, and spammers won't be able to harvest them, even if they do hack you.

Doesn't the fact that this common theme of only internal contacts being spammed suggest that it's an inside job at Microsoft?

dichapman

I may be being thick but where else can i store them? and what is spoofing? I have had emails from friends that they have not sent too!

debitcardmayhem

dichapman wrote: »

I may be being thick but where else can i store them? and what is spoofing? I have had emails from friends that they have not sent too!

Use something else other than webmail (eg IE/Firefox/Chrome..) use a mail client on your PC eg Outlook Express (...ugh), Windows Live (.... ugh) or perhaps Thunderbird (..... Yay ....or ) . That way if your contacts are stolen you have a new thread to start ie "someone hacked into my pc and stole my contacts". Webmail access is fine if you are away from home just for checking if you have mail, do not store your contacts on your server(ie Hotmail/Gmail/Yahoo) . I could probably send out loads of email from dichapmanxxxxx\@hotmail.(com/co.uk/cn... or dichapmanxxxxx\@live.com) and some of them will get returned to you or be possibly received by your friends and they will think they are yours, that is spoofing put very crudely.Also never respond to emails that you receive that ask click here to unsubscribe/remove that gives the spoofers the ammo that says "hey this email address is live .... let's pass it around"

Basically get a new email address (pain I know but send your real friends a change of address and change your online accounts that you care about to point to your new email address ). THen after your pain has passed let your spamming friends

I have had emails from friends that they have not sent too!

how to stop getting/sending what is not for/from them.

dichapman

I have registered my email address at thunderbird, do I no longer use hotmail to access them? Not sure I am doing what I am supposed to do.

Thanks again guys! Have new laptop now!