securing hotmail account-hacking issues

eira

Am well and truly spooked and hope someone can help. Have had a deluge of spam over the last few days-all from the same place (I have a program that tracks domain names). Two days ago I had a spam that looked as if it came from a site that I signed into using the identity I use on that site-and only on that site. I always keep my e-mail private. Today I had an e-mail from a site I have never been on using my daughter's name (a name she dropped years ago but the person I believe is behind the 'attack' wouldn't know that)

Have looked on the net and discovered that Hotmail is really easy to hack into-the person I believe is behind it is a a computer buff-a professional in net systems. (Makes me sound paranoid this I know)

Question is how can I protect my account - i believe changing the password is one way but is this enough? Also what can he dig out from my Hotmail account-can he for instance delete files/change e-mails etc ?

Very desperate. In the meantime I am going to change passwords on both Hotmail accounts. As said this person is a professional

wolfman

Hmm, I'd take some of the reports with a pinch of salt. Hotmail is generally very secure.

As long as you have a secure setup, and strong password in place, and ignore unknown emails, it can be near impossible to break into.

My advice would be:
- Use Firefox, possibly with the ScriptBlock extension
- Make sure you have the necessary decent anti-spyware, anti-virus etc... in place
- Don't open unknown emails, just report them as spam
- Set a strong password.

For using a password make it longer than 12 characters (containing lowercase, uppercase, nuimber and a symbol) if possible and not words in the dictionary, or info common to yourself. I like to use songs, acronyms etc... for remembering mine.

And I like to keep each site's password unique. So for hotmail, I may take the first two letters ("ho") and add them somewhere into my password.

eira

Thanks for this-have just changed password and question-both in a language the hacker doesn't know. I never open unfamiliar e-mails etc because he hacked my computer before. How do I do the ScriptBlock extension-am currently using Firefox.?
What spooks me though is the connection onto the sites-how was this done ? How much information can you tap into using Hotmail ? Are my online files safe? I know it sounds paranoid but the mail with my daughtrer's name was really spooky-she just doesn't use it anymore. (It's her father's surname which she dropped 5 years ago-he doesn't know that )

Thanks so much for the help

wolfman

Oops meant to say NoScript, not ScriptBlock.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722

It's easy to install, just follow the instructions on the page. Be warey though, it can be a pain to use. Some say it's being over paranoid. It's worth a try, see how you fare with it.