Windows Live 'contact list'...
That hippy village piece of junk known as 'Windows Live Mail' includes a 'contact list' and it appears that hackers have discovered how to access it to send out their rubbish.
Fortunately, it is possible to use Outlook Express to send/receive Hotmail if you use the correct settings. So my advice to anyone using Windows Live Mail would be to $hitcan it pronto - I'm waiting for a Hotmail account recovery code, but in the meantime have found and killed the ridiculous 'cloud-based' contact list which Windows Live Mail created when I tried to use it last year.