Unauthorised emails

[Falcon_LS]

I've had friends telling me they received emails from my email address, advertising products and so forth. Logging into my Hotmail account, those emails were in my sent folder.

As far as I understand, this means some idiot is logging in to my account, sending these stupid emails (even leaving an out of office auto reply with advertising) and logging out. So I changed my password and security details, but it keeps happening. Is there any way to help prevent this, apart from deleting all my contacts?

 

[Ursae_Majoris]

Did you try contacting Hotmail administrators?
Change password to a random alphanumeric word with a mix of higher and lower cases, minimum 12 characters long. Do not leave any hints.
Is password memorized in your browser? Who has access to your computer? Has it been hacked? Try changing the Hotmail password from a different computer you do not normally use.

 

[rick9009]

You may have a key logger on your computer what is the status of your anti-virus and firewall soft/hardware?

 

[stockrex]

yeah change ur pass to strong pass.
was your pass weak? in the dictionary?
hotmail support pop connection, someone could be trying to hackit to send emails.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: Falcon_LS
I've had friends telling me they received emails from my email address, advertising products and so forth. Logging into my Hotmail account, those emails were in my sent folder.

As far as I understand, this means some idiot is logging in to my account, sending these stupid emails (even leaving an out of office auto reply with advertising) and logging out. So I changed my password and security details, but it keeps happening. Is there any way to help prevent this, apart from deleting all my contacts?

I just spent the better part of the weekend resolving the same issue. I'm still thinking about reinstalling the OS. My MSN email account was hacked. Run AV software, anti-spyware, and get on another PC and change your all your passwords. So far so good with the fix. I contacted MSN, honestly they really didn't care other to say change the password.

 

[Falcon_LS]

Thanks for the input. My password was already a combination of lower and upper case letters and numbers, as is the new one. I've never saved any passwords though. Not sure about key loggers though, how can I go about finding out?

 

[demarpaint]

Try, running a malware program, anti-spyware software, and do a Virus scan. If it is not too much trouble the best way, as was explained to me in a thread I started is to wipe the hard drive clean and reinstall your OS, then change your PW. Something I really didn't want to do, but if my OCD takes over I will probably end up doing. You could also bring it to a pro and have them check, something else I don't want to do.