Help, my email account has been hacked

alanrowell

I've had a few "message not delivered" emails recently to accounts in my contacts list, which were repeats of similar emails I had a number of years ago.

This was caused by a hack on my account several YEARS ago because I was stupid enough to use a internet cafe at Heathrow.

Looks as if someone is flogging an old email list so it's probable that your computer isn't affected.

Mojisola

macman wrote: »

You must change your password a a priority-if not you'll find yourself locked out of the account when someone else does it for you.
It appears that your address is being spoofed as well.

Mojisola wrote: »

Before you change it, check your settings.

When my hotmail account was hacked, the hackers changed the setting so that they were informed whenever the password was changed. They fixed the notification email address so that I couldn't change it - it's greyed out on the screen and doesn't respond to being clicked on.

Is there any way to fix the problem I have? If I change my password, the new password gets emailed to the spammer.

macman

I don't think the password itself gets emailed-the system would just send an email notification that the password has been changed. That would alert the account holder (or in this case the hacker) that someone has changed the settings.

alanrowell

If someone had changed their details then there should have been emails saying this along with an option to undo the changes.

However to be certain the OP needs to do the changes to their email account from another computer just in case their computer is compromised.

chillsky

1. Change hotmail password.

2. Change logon password to other services if you use same password.

3. Look at changing password to services which are linked to your hotmail eg, forgotten email requests getting sent to that account.

4. Create a gmail account.

Mojisola

chillsky wrote: »

4. Create a gmail account.

This is what I've done.

I cleared out the hotmail address book and that stopped the junk emails being sent out.

RussJK

alanrowell wrote: »

This was caused by a hack on my account several YEARS ago because I was stupid enough to use a internet cafe at Heathrow.

They can be a pain for sure! One advantage of my (paid) service with Fastmail is you can set limited access username/passwords to get at email accounts, so good for accessing the account from an unsecured connection.

alanrowell wrote: »

However to be certain the OP needs to do the changes to their email account from another computer just in case their computer is compromised.

I tend to agree, if the OP's computer was part of the chain of events then changing the password from it would just mean another good password is burned.

lemonade_lifestyle

This has happened to my AOL email account today.Same email as OP been sent out to all address contacts.
No evidence of sent messages but have had some messages come through about undelivered mail!
What do I need to do? Email has been accessed from home and on family laptop in Australia in last week.

RussJK

Use the 'Malware/Spyware removal' sticky to rule out your own computer as a source of infection. Start a new thread if you want anyone to review your logs; just getting an 'all clean' from one program doesn't necessarily mean you are.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/133269

Afterwards, change passwords from a clean computer.

Getting a better email provider than AOL might be a good suggestion too.

lemonade_lifestyle

Yes i understand the AOL problem. Are there any good free email accounts i can set up? Tied into contract with AOL