Hotmail Account Sending People Messages

Blisterman

I was in a Hostel last weekend, where I logged into MSN messager, to chat to some people briefly.
Yesterday I noticed that everyone in my MSN contacts has been sent an email from my Hotmail account, saying

RE: Good electronic products
Dear friend:
Sorry for disturbing you.We are an authorized export wholesaler in China. We mainly supply Laptops Notebooks, Digital Cameras ,Digital Video, Television,Ipods, Mobile, PDA, GPS,PS3,PSP and so on. We will supply the best price and high qulity items.
You could register to be a member of our website.And you can order it online and fill the order letter,or contact us for the items through email,msn or phone.
If you have any questions,please contact us by the following ways:
WEBSITE: http://www.onlinemaill168.com/
MSN: onlin168@hotmail.com
EMAIL: onlin168@hotmail.com
Thanks for your golden time.
Best wishes to you and all your family members.

Does this mean hackers have my login details? Has this happened to anyone else? Should I change my password?

trout

I've seen this spam before ... the "thanks for your golden time" message stuck in my mind.

It's spam - MSN spam in this instance, though I've seen the same thing for gmail, same format mail, with different destination websites.

The machine you used in the hostel was most likely riddled, and your contacts list was most likely harvested here.

I would imagine the spam is spoofing your account details, but that doesn't always mean your account has been compromised ... just your contacts list.

I would change your MSN / hotmail password, be vigilant with your own machine(s) and keep a close eye on activity (hotmail sent items),

Blisterman

Well, if I go into the sent page of my hotmail account, the messages are in there.
If I changed my account, would they be able to get the new password too?

_CreeD_

Not if you change it from a clean machine. And I would do so quickly before they decide to change it for you.

Blisterman

Done. I've noticed that the country in my profile has changed to Central African Republic.

Should I be alright now? Is there any chance of them getting into my account again?

trout

With any web based service protected only by user-id & password, you risk having your account compromised. All you can do is reduce that risk ... you can't avoid it.

Change your password - regularly. Make sure the password is not easily guessed.
Change your secret question & answer - again, it's no harm to change this from time to time.
Keep an eye on your sent mail folder, for mail you didn't send.
Be careful about what machines you use ... particularly machines in shared environments, for all kinds of reasons ... virus, spyware, malware, keyloggers etc.

Finally, be very careful about what information you store in your webmail account ... especially if that information could be used to support ID theft.

Good luck ... It's a jungle out there

mrshappy

I can't figure out how to change my hotmail password - anyone help?

chickey

mrshappy wrote: »

I can't figure out how to change my hotmail password - anyone help?

under password when you go to login - hit forgot password. u will get a security question. had my hotmail hacked so just been there done that

gollem_1975

just been hit by the following one ( hotmail )

Hey How 陆are轨 you 任doing ?hope札 everything well , let me introduce you 剐one 危perfect空 website . www.yovert.com I ordered one white 3gs apple iphone from it , much lower but brand new , genuine , Through it you can find many other products.such as 夸laptops ,mobile包phones. digital痊 cameras and 段so on.

sent out at about 19:00 hours to everyone in my contacts list ( embarassing or wha :mad: )

have changed password and am now wracking my brain as how this might have happened.

any ideas. is it possible that my email address was harvested and some application used a dictionary / brute force attack to login to my account.

the email is not in my sent items either.

stowney27

just had the same one and now all my contacts have been deleted!
cant understand how this happened as i have a mac at home (no viruses ) and the only other computers i use are the ones in college??
anyone able to shed some light on this issue?

refusetolose

stowney27 wrote: »

just had the same one and now all my contacts have been deleted!
cant understand how this happened as i have a mac at home (no viruses ) and the only other computers i use are the ones in college??
anyone able to shed some light on this issue?

all my contacts were deleted too the other day...

also had some of that spam mail being sent from my address